Friends and comrades,
In this week’s Dispatch, we are covering some contract details, the latest issue of Perspective Magazine, We Together Strong Community’s upcoming 6th anniversary, a message from the Temporary Workers’ Rights Committee, as well as upcoming educational opportunities and committee meetings.
Solidarity,
Kyle Turner
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Contract Details
There are two recent bulletins from National about the tentative agreements that we will be voting on in the near future.
- Urban Tentative Agreement: SSD: The biggest demand for Group 2 was reversing SSD. This demand was unsuccessful in a number of ways, however under the tentative agreement SSD will not be applied to foot routes (which refers to routes that use relay boxes). There are also a number of rights for letter carriers working as routers, such as remaining in Group 2 and being entitled to 15.08 and 17.04. To read the full bulletin, click HERE.
- RSMC Tentative Agreement: Hourly Rate of Pay, Job Security and Pay Protection: Under this tentative agreement, there will be improvements to job security, such as lowering the radius for relocating surplus employees from 75 km to 60km and increasing the time laid-off employees can remain on the recall list from 12-months to 24-months. In addition, if after a restructure to the new system, if a worker obtains a route of less value than their previous route, they will keep the value of their old route up to a maximum of 8-hours per day for a maximum of 12-months. For the full bulletin, click HERE.
Perspective Magazine: Vote Recommendations
Our National Office has released a new issue of Perspective Magazine, which covers the tentative agreement ratification vote. You can read Perspective online HERE.
Of note is that this issue contains a minority report from the members of the National Executive who recommend that we vote NO to the tentative agreements. This includes National President Jan Simpson, 1st VP Rona Eckert, 3rd VP Jody Hutton, Pacific National Director Jennifer Savage, as well as Jim Gallant, who was one of the urban negotiators.
The Edmonton Local Executive also could not recommend that members vote YES to the agreements. The members present at the March GMM voted on a motion to recommend a NO vote because of how few of our demands were met while the Corporation seemed to get a great deal of what it wanted.
In the end, of course, the decision is up to you. You can find the schedule for the ratification vote for the Edmonton Local HERE.
We Together Strong Community: 6th Anniversary
The 6th Anniversary of We Together Strong Community is quickly approaching. You can help We Together Strong Community reach their goal of providing 201 food hampers by donating through GoFundMe HERE.
We Together Strong Community is also looking for volunteers in the depots to help collect donated food items. If you are interested in volunteering to help with this, please reach out to wetogetherab@gmail.com.
Message from the Temporary Workers’ Rights Committee: Looking for an OCRE
Many people might believe that since this committee has the words “Temporary Workers” in it that you must be a temporary employee in the Urban contract to be a part of it, so it may surprise you to learn that it is actually an open committee. We have taken the stance that all perspectives are valid when it comes to workers’ rights as a whole. We currently have a permanent employee, a retail employee, a plant employee, as well as several temp letter carriers. This diversity in perspectives allows us to better grasp the full picture of what is important to us all.
With this in mind, we are currently seeking to fill our last two seats with at least one OCRE from the RSMC side of things. The goal is to learn from each other and get an idea of what we all want to see change within the Corporation as well as our union. Anyone interested can email the Committee Chair at temprightscupw730@gmail.com or ask for a nomination at the next GMM, which I will gladly give.
Also a reminder that all of our committee meetings are open to all members and are always posted on the cupw730.ca website under Meetings>Committee Meetings. Hope to see you there!
– Robert Hickling, Chair of the Temp Rights Committee
Education
- Local
- Basic Shop Steward: Two upcoming sessions being offered (April 14th-16th and April 21st-23rd). Deadline: April 2nd by 4 pm. For more information and to apply online, click HERE.
- Regional
- 3-Day Education Seminar: Courses offered include Welcome to CUPW, Mental Health in the workplace, Political Action, and Health and Safety. Deadline: April 17th by 4 pm. Regional courses require that we receive the printed application. For more information and for the application, click HERE.
- National
- Union Education Program: Deadline to apply is April 1st. For more information and to download the application, click HERE.
Committee Meetings
- Social Committee: Scheduled for Thursday, March 26th at 7 pm via Zoom. For more information, click HERE.
- Temporary Workers’ Rights Committee: Scheduled for Tuesday, April 21st at 7:30 pm via Zoom. For more information, click HERE.
Reminders
- National Women’s Conference: Deadline to apply is April 17th. To read the bulletin, click HERE. To apply to attend, click HERE.
- Movie Showing – Norma Rae: For more information about the Social Committee’s showing of Norma Rae at the Garneau Theatre, click HERE.
- Social Committee Survey: Help the Social Committee decide what to do in the coming year. Complete the survey HERE.
- Slo-Pitch Survey: Interested in playing slo-pitch once it warms up? Help the Social Committee by filling out the survey HERE.
- Staying Connected: Sign up for the text service or email list HERE.
- Special Assessment: The Local’s Special Assessment is suspended for the fiscal year (July 2025-June 2026), but will return in July 2026. So you should see a decrease in dues payments by slightly less than $15/month.
- Disability Supports: To access the Disability Supports portal, which provides a list of programs and services in your community, click HERE.
- Union Savings: To take part in these savings, you can register at unionsavings.ca/.
- Buy Union: Looking for a list of union-made goods and services? Click HERE.