CUPE 23

The next General Membership meeting will be held on Saturday, November 19, 2016 at 10:00 AM.

New members, please arrive at 9:45 AM for registration.

Coffee and muffins will be served at 9:30 AM.

Message from the President: Ratification Results

Sisters and Brothers,

Last night, the membership of our local union voted to ratify the Memorandums of Agreement between this local and the City of Burnaby as well as the Burnaby Public Library Board. The vote was overwhelmingly in favour: 80% for the City and 89% for the Library. The City Council and the Library Board will be voting on ratification next week.

Wage increases arising from the Memorandum will take effect as of the date of ratification and, in discussion with Human Resources, we anticipate that those wage increases will be reflected on the second pay period in September. A separate pay for retroactive wages will be issued at that time.

We anticipate that the new Collective Agreements will be finalized and printed by mid autumn.

I would like to thank our members who came out and participated in the vote and I want to take this opportunity to thank the members of the Elections Committee and our office support staff who made sure that the vote went smoothly. Once again, I would like to express my appreciation to the members of the Bargaining Committee for their hard work during the bargaining process.

In solidarity,
Simon Challenger

Corn shuckers needed on Labour Day! 

Volunteering starts at 9:00 AM on Sunday, September 5, 2015 at Swangard Stadium in Burnaby. Any amount of time contributed – small or large – will be appreciated! Volunteers will receive the CUPE Local 23 “Solidarity in Burnaby” T-shirt.

If you are willing to volunteer, please contact the Union office.
Email: admin@cupe23.ca | Phone: 604-298-0200

Message from the President: Bargaining Update

After thirty-two meetings over a period extending from the beginning of March until August 4, 2016, bargaining has finally wrapped up and we have signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the City of Burnaby and the Burnaby Public Library Board.

The members of your bargaining committee are proud of the fact that we were able to fully discuss every single proposal which we tabled with the employer back on March 7. This was a departure from the usual practice in bargaining where most proposals seem to disappear from the bargaining table almost as soon as they are tendered. Full credit has to go to the bargaining committee for standing firm in its determination to achieve this goal.

There were some heated moments during negotiations as is to be expected when important matters are up for discussion but, overall, the talks were productive and respectful. Though the employer did not agree with many of the points which we raised and had their own views on issues, they now have a much greater understanding of the concerns which you have to deal with on a daily basis. This can only benefit us all moving forward.

Did we get everything we wanted? No, we didn’t. That is the nature of collective bargaining. Your bargaining committee got what it feels is the best we could achieve, making some gains without giving away hard fought benefits. The employer’s agenda was to gain relief on rising benefit costs and we were able to hold the line while protecting what we had.

We have much work to do moving forward to future rounds of collective bargaining. We have put some building blocks in place which will allow us to build successfully on the issues which are fundamentally important to us such as seniority rights and access to work.

We were able to gain seventy-six conversions of Auxiliary, Temporary Full-Time and Regular Part-Time employees into Regular Full-time and Regular Part-time jobs. That is a previously unheard of number of conversions but it is still short of what we had hoped to achieve and we have many members deserving of permanent employment who we still have to work to secure proper status for.

In all, your bargaining committee is satisfied with the outcome and we are recommending that you accept the new agreement. We will be holding two information meetings on this Memorandum of Agreement: Wednesday, August 17, at 5:30pm and Saturday, August 20, at 10:00am, both at the Union office. Our ratification vote will be held on Wednesday, August 24, from 8am through 8pm.

In solidarity,
Simon Challenger

You can view the Memorandum of Agreement for the City of Burnaby by clicking here.

You can view Appendix 2 by clicking here.

You can view Appendix 3 by clicking here.

You can view the Memorandum of Agreement for the Library Board by clicking here.