Date: February 29, 2024
Greetings Sisters and Brothers,
In our last update we provided on the December 21, 2023, we informed you that we had met with the Employer for mandatory conciliation and that some progress was made but we didn’t get a deal. We could have walked away from conciliation then since we had done all we needed to for the mandatory part of it. That would have started the countdown to when we could take job action. But since a little progress was made, we agreed to give it another chance and meet in the new year. Unfortunately, this time no progress was made, and we didn’t still get a deal.
We told the Employer at the last meeting that to get a deal we needed a reasonable wage offer, National Day for Truth and Reconciliation as a stat holiday, and the withdrawal of any claw backs. A reasonable wage offer meant at least matching the increases in funding they have gotten and providing something substantial in the form of retro pay and a signing bonus in order to make up for the unfair labour practice of introducing a wage increase during bargaining without any negotiation. We didn’t get those things.
The Employer went back and forth tabling proposals and withdrawing them and tabling them again and, after a long time, gave us a final offer that included the stat and withdrawing the claw backs but also a wage offer of less than the funding increase they got, less retro, and a smaller signing bonus than we proposed. They offered a raise of 2.2% effective the April 1, 2023 and a total signing bonus of $500.00. They said the low wage offer was necessary to offset the cost of bringing in a new stat. We said that stinks. Why should the members pay for their own statutory holiday when no one else at Luther had to? Since it was a final offer and we said no (we said a lot of things, no was only one of them), the conciliator called it a day. The meetings ended and the conciliator said he would write to the Minister of Labour to tell him. We now have a 14-day cooling off period from the date of that letter before we can serve 48 hours notice of job action. The 14 days will run out on the March 16.
We are holding an information meeting on Wednesday, March 6 at 11:00am to talk about what happened at conciliation and where we go from here. Please plan to join us for a review of bargaining and to ask us any questions you have. Follow this link to RSVP for the meeting. Please note this meeting will be virtual and you must complete the RSVP form to receive the details on how to join the meeting.
Thank you for your patience and support and we look forward to seeing you on March 6.
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 LutherCare Communities Group Homes Bargaining Committee:
Arin Blair (Unit Chair) • Laura Fleming (Unit Vice Chair) • Staff: Kelly Reynolds (Union Representative) • Cam McConnell (Lead Negotiator)
Click here for a printable version of this Bargaining Bulletin