Collective Bargaining Update
by Scott Roger
[email protected]
As everyone is well aware, we are now right in the middle of Collective Bargaining with NavCanada for a new contract. In order to bring everyone up to speed on the goings on of contract negotiations, the following is a recap of the talks until now.
In August, CATCA hired John Fryer to serve as our Chief
Spokesperson on the Negotiating Team. Shortly after joining the
CATCA team, John began a series of unit visits in order to become
more familiar with the duties, working conditions, and overall
concerns and expectations of our membership across the country.
He visited Winnipeg in September along with Dave Lewis and Fuzz
Bhimji. They all attended our Branch General Meeting and took
part in an extensive question and answer period.
By late September, CATCA National had received over 700 Contract
proposals from across the country and the Contract Committee met
on Sept 23-25 to group and prioritize the proposals.
On October 1, 1997, CATCA filed Notice to Bargain and the wheels
were set in motion. Initially, it was agreed that negotiations
would take place two days a week (Monday and Tuesday) commencing
October 20, with additional days being added as required. In
celebration of the long awaited beginning of negotiations, the
membership was asked to wear their white CATCA golf shirts. This
show of solidarity was met with 100% participation in Winnipeg
ACC and 99% participation nation wide.
On October 20, 1997, the Negotiating Team consisting of John
Fryer, Dave Lewis, Fuzz Bhimji, Dean McDonald, Ken Sheldrick,
Terry Bartley, and Peter Barnacle, met with NavCanada's
Negotiating Team and proposals were exchanged. Our proposals came
in the form of a completely rewritten Collective Agreement that
the Contract Committee had prepared. This was a complete document
that laid out all of the terms and conditions of employment that
CATCA was looking for. (Your local Executive each has a copy of
this CBA if you have not yet seen it.) NavCanada's proposals
reflected an "interest-based" bargaining approach and
took the form of broad statements of interest that would require
further discussion.
On Nov. 3-5 and Nov. 11-12, bargaining continued on non-monetary
issues. Agreement was reached on some issues and several articles
were signed off.
On November 11, NavCanada announced that their Chief Negotiator,
Mr. Roger Beaulieu, had been assigned to an oversight position
supervising NavCanada negotiations. Mr. Jacques (Jake) Emond was
named as the Chief Negotiator for NavCanada. Since CATCA has
already worked with Mr. Emond in Negotiating the MOU's this was
considered a positive occurrence.
On November 24, CATCA signed off on an Emergency Support
Agreement to be enacted in the event of a work stoppage. A copy
of this agreement was enroute to us locally but had not been
received as of the writing of this article.
The Bargaining Teams met from Nov 25-28 and both agreed that
progress has been made on several of the non-monetary issues and
a further schedule of meetings was agreed upon as follows: Dec.
2. -5, Dec. 8-9, Dec. 17-19 and if scheduling permits, Dec. 15-16
will be added.
The Contract Committee met on November 29th to discuss strategy
on the issue of monetary remuneration. A consensus was reached
and recommendations were made to the Bargaining team as to how to
proceed. As of this writing, no date was given as to when
monetary discussions would commence but the Bargaining Team felt
that it would be soon. Once the proposals regarding monetary
issues are presented to NavCanada's Bargaining Team, National
Office will forward copies to all Branches and Facilities.
This brings us up to date with what has happened so far. As Kevin
Wallace, Regional Director, writes in his report, both sides
continue to show commitment to completing a new contract as soon
as possible.
I would like to remind all of the members of the importance of a
united membership. Together we can collectively fight for a
better contract package for all Controllers across the country
and achieve what we deserve. In the coming months, as
negotiations wear on, NavCanada will likely do everything in its
power to "divide and conquer". It has begun already on
the local front with management beginning to direct its attention
towards many tiny, generally meaningless issues in an effort to
wear down the collective will. Let us as CATCA members focus our
energies on maintaining solidarity by looking out for our fellow
controllers. When one of us gets pushed around, we all get pushed
around. It's time to start pushing back.
I would also ask every member to look inside themselves and ask,
"What do I want from this contract?" Once you have an
answer, I would like your commitment to fight, not for what you
think we'll get, but for what you truly want and deserve. You owe
that to yourself and you owe that to every controller across
Canada. NavCanada wants "The World's Most Respected
ANS." Let's show them how much we respect ourselves.