Source: mediaunion.ca
Members of the Black Press Lower Mainland bargaining unit voted 128 -84 (60%) to turn down a proposed rollover of their collective agreement.
The company was proposing a four-year contract with wage increases of 0%, 0%, 1% and 2%.
Over 80 per cent of the membership voted.
The next step will be to form a bargaining committee and engage in formal bargaining with the company.
Source: cwa-scacanada.ca
Union members picket outside the Times Colonist in this photo from 2002. The strike began at noon on Sept. 3, 2002 and was ultimately to last exactly nine weeks.
An about-face by management of the Victoria Times Colonist has brought contract talks with three unions screeching to a halt.
The Victoria Joint Council of Newspaper Unions says meetings planned for next week have been cancelled and no new dates have been scheduled. The impasse was reached when the employer attempted to reintroduce significant items the Council believed had been removed.
Negotiations to renew three collective agreements that expired at the start of this year began on May 1. Two CWA Canada Locals and the Communications Energy and Paperworkers bargain jointly at the newspaper, which is now owned by Postmedia Network.
The Victoria-Vancouver Island Newspaper Guild represents 153 employees in editorial, advertising, circulation, maintenance, information technology and business departments. The 35 workers in the mailroom belong to Local 30403 while CEP’s 29 members work in the pressroom, pre-press and composing.
The unions faced similar difficulties in negotiations four years ago when the newspaper was still owned by Canwest. The company at that time went into talks seeking major concessions that one union spokesman described as “total decimation.” In the end, however, they were able to reach agreement on new contracts that went forward rather than backward.
Source: The Newspaper Guild
Members of CWA and IBEW at Verizon Communications will return to work on Tuesday, Aug. 23, at which time the contract will be back in force for an indefinite period.
We have reached agreement with Verizon on how bargaining will proceed and how it will be restructured. The major issues remain to be discussed, but overall, issues now are focused and narrowed.
We appreciate the unity of our members and the support of so many in the greater community. Now we will focus on bargaining fairly and moving forward.
CWA and IBEW represent 45,000 workers at Verizon covered by this contract from Virginia to New England.
Source: The Montreal Gazette
About 20 full-time and a number of part-time employees who work at The Gazette’s production facility on St. Jacques St. in Notre Dame de Grâce were locked out Sunday night after rejecting the company’s final contract offer.
Employees in four other units affiliated with the Teamsters – pressmen, machinist-electricians, paper handlers and building services – approved new contracts in votes on Sunday.
The main stumbling blocks in negotiations between management and its locked-out workers are staffing, working hours and overtime pay.
Bob Pruden, vice-president of labour relations for Postmedia Network Inc., said the previous contract had minimum staffing provisions that are far beyond what is required today, given the changes in the newspaper industry.
“Everybody is aware of the impact that the Internet and new technology like iPads and so on have had on the newspaper business,” he said. “In terms of our circulation, the number of papers we produce and also the advertising in those papers and the advertising inserts have all declined significantly over the last five years covered by the previous collective agreement,” Pruden said on Monday.
Denis Fournier, negotiator for the Teamsters Local 41M, said he was disappointed with the employer’s decision. “Management agreed to leave a four-day week in place for the workers (in the four other units), while requiring the mailing and plate-making workers to work five days a week,” Fournier said.
The locked-out employees include two active members of the platemakers’ unit, positions the company wants to abolish, and fewer than 20 regular, full-time mailers. There are also a number of full-and part-time substitutes in the mailroom who are assigned their shifts by the union.
The Gazette will continue to publish uninterrupted during the lockout.
Source: cwa-scacanada.ca
Montreal Newspaper Guild | CWA Canada Local 30111
A pay-equity plan that has finally been approved at The Gazette will see about $2.5 million in back pay and penalties doled out to workers.
David Wilson, the CWA Canada staff representative who has been involved with the pay-equity file in Montreal since the beginning in January 2000, says workers who were “grossly underpaid” will now be properly compensated, some as much as $50,000.
Clerical jobs were the source of some of the greatest discrepancies, says Wilson. Pay increases range from one to 20 per cent and are retroactive to Nov. 21, 2001, the original deadline for The Gazette to comply with provincial legislation. The payouts include a five-per-cent penalty the company was assessed each year past the deadline.
The province’s Pay Equity Commission has just given its stamp of approval to the plan, which was thrashed out over more than 10 years.
The employer-employee committee now has to begin a maintenance process, which must be completed by the end of this year. Wilson says this is necessary because new technologies and ways of doing things constantly alter the nature of jobs. After 2011, companies will have to do maintenance to the plan at least every five years.
He says CWA Canada Locals, particularly in Ontario which has pay-equity laws, need to keep up to date on changes in the workplace. “All those Locals should be doing maintenance because there’s money sitting there for their members.”
Wilson, who has the most pay equity expertise of any staff in the union, encouraged Locals to contact him if they would like some guidance on the matter.
Literally hundreds of hours were spent on pay equity in Montreal, he says. At the outset, the committee evaluated 73 jobs and had to construct a rating system that would pass muster with the commission.
Those sessions bogged down in 2003 when The Gazette “threw up roadblocks” with complaints to the commission and appeals to the courts, says Wilson.
Many companies put the process on hold in 2006, when it was thought the legislation would be revisited. “A lot of employers were hoping the legislation would be vastly changed or eliminated,” says Wilson. It wasn’t.
The committee at The Gazette restarted the process last August and concluded two weeks ago, says Wilson. The rating system they had devised was considered deficient by the commission, which then sent an employee to work with the committee to modify the plan to its satisfaction.
It could take some time to track down everyone who’s entitled to receive a payout, says Wilson. He cites the example of the Reader Sales & Service phone room (it closed in 2008) where many workers came and went over seven years.
The raises aren’t going solely to women. Wilson says some males who work in female-dominated departments such as the business office, will be getting an increase.