Ericsson Bargaining Update #2

Hello Ericsson USW members,

Your Committee, Brian, Dan, Kyle, Local Union Reps Steve McWhirter and Alexander Livingston as well as USW Staff Rep Jayson Little, met in Winnipeg this week to continue our journey in negotiating your first Collective Agreement.

As mentioned in the last update, we are continuing to move forward with the bargaining process despite the employer’s attempts to delay the process. The CIRB’s decision confirming that your work is federal jurisdiction stands and will remain in force unless overturned by the courts. The Union remains confident that the CIRB’s decision was legally correct.

We started the week by reviewing the USW Bargaining to Win course, then developed a bargaining survey so that you can help us identify the priorities for our initial Collective Agreement.

Our next steps will be to get the survey out to everyone next week, allow some time for it to be returned and then we will continue developing our opening proposal package that we will table. Your participation is vital. When constructing a new agreement, we generally bargain the non-monetary (Health and Safety language, grievance procedure, scheduling, etc) structure and framework of the agreement before getting into the monetary items (like wages and time off). As we build the opening proposal package, we will be canvassing with the employer for some dates to meet.

Please stay tuned for further updates and suggestions on how you can publicly support your bargaining committee. While we are committed to handling this process expeditiously, it is imperative to our committee, and to you, that we take the time to get it right.
 

In Solidarity, 

Your Bargaining Committee
Dan Brueckner
Kyle Strangward
Brian Ouellette
Alexander Livingston – Local Union Representative
Steve McWhirter – Local Union Representative
Jayson Little – USW Staff Representative