Date: November 24, 2023
Greetings Sisters, Brothers, and Colleagues,
Following the Employer’s review of the Union’s initial proposal document (template CBA) on June 21, 2023, and the Union’s review of the Employer’s initial proposal document, the parties met to continue bargaining on September 18th, 2023. The Employer provided counter proposal language to many of the articles in the template CBA which looked very familiar as they were taken from the Bentley Revera agreements. Your SEIU-West bargaining committee wants to use the same Esprit/Sienna CBA template in order to secure common collective agreements at all four Sienna facilities. By the end of the day the Employer had only worked half-way through their initial proposal response to our template collective agreement and will continue through the rest of the agreement when we meet next.
The Union offered options of several dates following the September meeting date. The Union has been pushing for additional dates in an attempt to secure a first collective agreement as quickly as possible. It has been over 2 years since certification of the Unit, and part of the delay has been with the change of ownership from Extendicare to Esprit-Sienna.
Bargaining resumed on November 21, 22 and 23, 2023, where the Employer left off in September. Following the Employer completing their initial response to our initial proposals package, the parties continued exchanging proposals back and forth. By the end of the 3 days the parties have agreement on 36 Articles and Sub-Articles. All the currently agreed-to Articles are “language” Articles. The parties will now assess which of the remaining Articles need to be moved to monetary discussions, and which Articles can continue to be discussed as language. During the past three days the Bargaining Committee feels a lot of progress has been made narrowing down outstanding issues between the parties.
There will be a bit of a break before the next confirmed bargaining date which has been set for January 15th, 2024, due to both parties desire to not set any meeting dates during the holiday season.
On behalf of the Committee, if you have questions about bargaining and/or your collective agreement contact the Member Resource Centre (MRC) by phone at 1-888-999-7348 ext 2298, by email at [email protected], or by using the contact form at www.seiuwest.ca.
Your participation in your Union makes us all strong!
In Solidarity,
The SEIU-West Stonebridge Crossing Bargaining Committee
Christine Derkach (Unit Chair) • Nathalie Ahotoh (Unit Vice-Chair) • Ivy Krueger (Communicator) Staff: Tracy Goodheart (Union Representative) • Larry Buchinski (Southern Negotiations Officer) • Bob Laurie (Director, Contract Bargaining & Enforcement)
Click here for a printable copy of this Bargaining Bulletin.