As reported in bulletin # 17 the Union was considering accepting one of the interest arbitrators proposed by the employer. However, such acceptance was conditional on the employer addressing concerns the Union had about the fact that all of the arbitrators proposed by the employer were unilingual. Unfortunately the employer, continuing its negotiation practice of being inflexible and unreasonable, refused to pay for providing translation during the arbitration process, even though they had proposed arbitrators who are unilingual Anglophones. This inflexibility resulted in the Union having to reject the employer proposals.

Union Requests Appointment of Interest Arbitrator

As the parties were unable to agree on the appointment of a mutually agreeable arbitrator the Union has written to the Minister of Labour requesting that she appoint an arbitrator.  In that letter the Union indicated that the arbitrator should be bilingual and have a sufficient number of available dates in order that the arbitration could begin in the near future and be completed in a reasonable amount of time.

Once the arbitrator is appointed the Negotiating Committee will continue its attempts to achieve a collective agreement that addresses the daily work floor concerns of the membership and excludes the unacceptable proposals being made by the employer.

Membership Support Important

As this bulletin was being prepared the Negotiating Committee was receiving reports of activities being undertaken by the membership in support of their Negotiating Committee. These included a large number of activities in British Columbia, where members joined together in work floor activities to show their solidarity, in Toronto where the membership participated in a mailing to Moya Greene to express their opposition to the employer’s proposed short-term disability plan (STD) and in Saguenay where members, both Urban Operations and RSMC, are regularly wearing buttons and t-shirts with the slogan “Stamp Out Unpaid Labour”.

These activities are important as they assist the Negotiating Committee by showing the employer that the membership supports the demands being made on their behalf and oppose those proposals of the employer that do not provide benefits similar to those enjoyed by other unionized employees at Canada Post or provide reasonable solutions to the everyday workplace concerns of the membership.