For several years now, the union has endeavoured to use clear language as much as possible in its communications with members. Our Benefits booklets are striking examples of this initiative.

However, this is not the case for the collective agreement.  We all know it would be a lot easier if it were written in clear language. A step in this direction was made during the last round of bargaining when the employer agreed to establish a four-member committee to review the collective agreement and rewrite it in clear language.

The mandate of this committee is set out in Appendix “JJ” of the collective agreement:

• Review the contractual language of the collective agreement;
• Propose wording changes to make it easier to understand and more user-friendly, while not altering its meaning and scope;
• Suggest amendments in the event the language does not reflect the parties’ mutual understanding;
• Propose new language to the parties should they agree to amend the provisions of the collective agreement.

In short, the committee’s objective is to produce a collective agreement that all members can understand.

CUPW Members of this Committee Selected

The National Executive Board has selected Sister Karen Kennedy and Brother Sylvain Lapointe as CUPW’s members on this committee. Both bring many years of experience to this task, the former as a clear language facilitator, and the latter, as a specialist in the collective agreement. The 2^nd National Vice-President has been mandated to coordinate the union’s work in this initiative.

A Long-Term Initiative

The committee began its work a few weeks ago, with  the following work plan:

• Upgrade training in clear language;
• Familiarizing itself with computer programs;
• Consolidate the provisions of the collective agreement and arbitration decisions.

The committee will then begin to rewrite each one of the clauses of the urban collective agreement. As you can well imagine, this will be a long-term endeavour.

Involving All Members

Because we feel involving the union’s membership in this work is necessary and important, we will definitely be calling upon your experience as part of the review process.  We’ll let you know more about this as soon as we have a better idea of what shape this involvement will take.