Pete Wright elected Vice-Chair of Corrections Bargainining Team
On June 21, 2008 the Bargaining teams were elected. Here are the results:
CORRECTIONS: CENTRAL:
Dave Kerr: Chair Eric Morin: Chair
Pete Wright: Vice Chair Roxanne Barnes: Vice-Chair Dean Hauth Dennis Wilson
Dave Graves Shelley McCormick
Tom O'Neil Anne Pereira
Paul Johnstone Chris Cormier
John Mearini Jim Finnigan
Carl Thibodeau
Derek Miller
Alicia Czekierda
Karrie Ouchas
Dan Vincent
Lynda Ferguson
Nathan Aubin
Jennifer Roukkula
Two local members elected
Pete Wright elected as Region 3 Corrections team bargaining representative.
Dan Murphy elected 1st alternate as Region 3 representative to the Central team.
All elected delegates from the Regional Bargaining Conferences will have the very important task of electing the 2008 Bargaining Teams on June 21.
Starting September 8, the bargaining teams will begin team training, then start formulating the demands from the locals into proposals for the bargaining table. They will also begin reviewing any special case submissions.
Finally, on November 4, the teams will sit down with the employer for the first time to start bargaining your next collective agreement.
For other region 3 bargaining team reps see Local News
"The most important financial document of your life"CERC Chair Eric Morin referred to the OPS collective agreement as "the most important financial document of your life." Just think about how many ways your collective agreement affects you:
- It determines what kind of house you can afford
"United we bargain, divided we beg"
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Sudbury Star
May 28, 2008
Ontario contracts set to expire like dominoes
It's never happened before - score after score of Ontario public sector contracts set to expire one after another over the next 16 months like a big set of dominoes. And if the provincial government doesn't take its public sector unions seriously at the bargaining table in the months ahead, those locals, starting with some 6,500 Ontario college support staff in late August, could go on strike.
"We call it the perfect opportunity for the government to live up to its promises to rebuild the public service," said Warren "Smokey" Thomas, president of the 130,000-member Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) in an interview in Greater Sudbury Monday. "But, I would rather bargain contracts. We will bargain hard and expect they will bargain hard ... I will bargain longer. But if they want a strike, they will get a strike."
Thomas was in Sudbury to meet with local OPSEU leaders at the United Steelworkers of America hall in preparation for province-wide talks, some of which have already started. Thomas and other key OPSEU officials have already visited London, Toronto and Hamilton since March.
Sudbury is home to about 4,500 OPSEU members. That total includes about 1,000 who work at Cambrian College and College Boreal, about 100 who work local Liquor Control Board of Ontario stores, about 1,500 who work for the provincial government and the balance who work for "Broader Public Service" agencies.
A Kingston resident, Thomas has been OPSEU president just over a year after serving six years as first vice-president and treasurer.
Interest in this round of negotiations is high, said Thomas, as some 80 per cent of members have returned member surveys concerning their top issues they want addressed in talks. The survey's rate of return has never been that high, he said.
Thomas said Ontario college support staff are now in bargaining, with some 45,000 Ontario public service workers set to go to the bargaining table in November. LCBO employees start negotiating in early 2009
Thomas said the union is going to take a different approach this time around with the province.
"In the Ontario public service, there's a limited right to strike: we have to negotiate essential and emergency services," he explained. "This time around, we are going to bargain first in the hopes we don't need that process. In the past, it poisons bargaining."
Thomas said he is optimistic the Dalton McGuinty Liberal Government is going to be in a good bargaining mood after having hammered out a new deal with Ontario nurses in just 32 hours.
He said matching the wages paid in the private sector will be one of the goals for many OPSEU bargaining teams.
"We are just looking for wage parity - that the employer pays the going rate for occupations and professions," said Thomas. "They (province) are having trouble with retention and keeping (employees). They are losing them to the private sector."
Pam Doig, regional supervisor-land service division with OPSEU in Sudbury, said it's still early in the bargaining game for most OPSEU members locally.
"Many of the members are just starting to come together and decide what their key demands are," she said. "(But) I think you can really expect some cross-unit networking to happen and taking a stand for other bargaining units."
Doig said she expects that wages will easily be the top issue on most OPSEU members' minds.
"There's a serious retention problem and they (province) need to be paying a fair market price for labour," she said. "Our members want a fair wage to survive on and reflect the importance of what they do."
