Regional Director's Report
by Kevin Wallace
[email protected]
This marks my second report for the Winnipeg ACC newsletter and covers the period up to the beginning of December. I would just like to say how impressed I was with the first issue, both from a content and a layout point of view. It should prove to be a great forum to keep everyone abreast of what is happening throughout the Center as well as on the Regional and National level.
The main focus for the Board of Directors at this time continues
to be Collective Bargaining. The Contract Committee met on
November 29th to finalize the recommendations to the Bargaining
Team regarding the monetary issues. These proposals will be
distributed to the membership once they are presented to the Nav
Canada Bargaining Team. The two sides have yet to set the
schedule on exchanging and dealing with monetary issues, however
it is anticipated that this will take place very soon. John Fryer
and Dave Lewis met with representatives from Nav Canada on
December 2 and 3 to outline a strategic plan for completing the
remainder of the negotiations. The purpose of this project
management exercise is to ensure that all the remaining issues
are properly identified and tracked. They will attempt to bundle
the issues into workable groups in an effort to build a logical
roadmap to completion.
I was in Ottawa from November 24th-28th to sit in as an observer
on the bargaining sessions that week. This was my first
opportunity to experience collective bargaining first hand, and
it proved to be very interesting. There are a lot of different
dynamics taking place during these sessions. At times it can
prove to be very slow with little or nothing being accomplished,
and at other times there can be rapid movement on many issues.
The mood from both sides was quite positive during the sessions I
attended, and there seemed to be a very strong commitment from
each side to get the contract completed.
As you can well imagine, the state of the ongoing contract
negotiations seems to be on everyone's minds these days and
rightfully so. I am continuously being asked "So how are
negotiations going?" The people who ask me this are usually
disappointed when I don't offer much more information than is
contained in the CATCA Bargaining Bulletin. Seeing as how it has
been 7 years since we were last involved in contract
negotiations, I realise that there are a large number of our
members who are experiencing negotiations for the first time. So
for their sake, and as a refresher for others, I will attempt to
explain the process and the reason for the confidentiality or the
"veil of secrecy". After the notice to bargain has been
served and the two parties sit down to negotiate, the first order
of business is usually to define the terms and conditions of the
negotiations themselves. One of the cornerstones of this
agreement is the unconditional commitment from both sides to keep
the discussions and agreements reached at the bargaining table
strictly confidential until a tentative agreement has been
reached. If either side breaches this confidentiality agreement,
it can do serious harm to the state of negotiations or even force
them to a halt. If any information is going to be released by
either party they normally check with the other side to get their
agreement, thus avoiding any surprises. Some members have
expressed the view that it should be alright for the parties to
release the items that have already been signed off, since
agreement on these issues has been reached. The problem with this
is that just because something has been signed off, it doesn't
mean that it can't come back onto the table before the contract
negotiations are completed. Another problem is that too much
emphasis could be placed on one particular article and the public
debate over whether we won or "got screwed" on each
item would be overwhelming. Looking at any one particular article
in isolation does not give one an accurate view of the overall
picture. Its only when the entire contract is complete that you
can properly assess the whole package. So for all of these
reasons, anything I see or hear as a result of observing the
bargaining sessions must remain confidential. One of the new
initiatives this time around is the introduction of the
Bargaining Bulletin which is basically a press release by CATCA
informing members, to the extent possible, of the progress of
negotiations to date. These are available on the CATCA homepage
(www.catca.ca) as soon as they are issued.
The meal and relief break arbitration wrapped up on November 8.
We probably won't receive a decision from the arbitrator until
some time toward the end of January. Our legal counsel presented
an extremely strong case and we are very hopeful that the
arbitrator will find a way to force the employer to cease this
deplorable treatment of our members working midnight shifts with
no meal or relief breaks. Thank you to the members who appeared
as witnesses on this arbitration. Your testimony was the backbone
of this case and the members in Winnipeg should be proud of you.
It is not easy to get up in front of a third party and share some
very personal, and often times upsetting experiences. The
professionalism displayed was impressive.
The last item I would like to address is the decision by the
CATCA Board of Directors not to participate in the National
Airspace Study to determine, among other things, the optimal
number and location of IFR units in the country. There was a long
and well thought out debate on the issue and in the end the
decision of the board was that it would not be appropriate for
CATCA to participate in this type of decision. It was felt that
our membership would be better served by focusing our efforts on
ensuring that any members who are affected by the outcome of this
study are treated with dignity and respect, and that every
possible benefit or option is made available to them. The board
was of the opinion that it would very difficult to support
whatever decision was made in the end, especially one that
favoured one location at the expense of another. If CATCA was a
part of the study, there would be a certain amount of ownership
involved with the decision, and that judging from past practices
it would be hard to overcome any of the preconceived ideas of
what the outcome should be. There was a dissenting opinion that
felt that the only way to ensure that the study is conducted
honestly and fairly is to be involved in it, however even they
had to agree that statistics are able to be manipulated to obtain
whatever result is desired.
In closing I would just like to wish everyone and their families
best wishes for the holiday season, and here's hoping that 1998
is great year for all of us. Keep your sticks on the ice.