General Membership Meeting
April 29th, 2007

President’s Report

Brothers and Sisters:

April has been an exceptionally important month for our Union and our Local.  As many of you are aware CUPW has recently ratified the new collective agreement.  The debate within our Union unfortunately was very divisive.  The Calgary Local narrowly accepted. the agreement.  Of note the National number to accept was slightly higher at 65.62%. 

As these numbers would suggest, and as our local Executives opposition would reinforce, we have continued concerns about the direction of our Union and workplace.  But this is no time to rehash the debate.   Instead it’s important to work towards strengthening our Union and making sure that the new contract works for all.  I would like to thank all those within our local who participated in the discussions and ratification process.  If nothing else the last few months has focused our membership and strengthened our Local.

The full time officers and myself will be attending a Presidents meeting on the last weekend in May in Toronto in order to have the details of the contract reviewed.  Over the next few weeks the many questions that come from the new deal will be clarified and answered.

Closer to home this month RSMC splits at depots 4 and 11 went ahead.  Once again the outcome had a negative affect on the members.  These splits are more about reducing the incomes than the workloads.  At a time when the Corporation claims to want to use RSMC’s their numbers continue to dwindle while the number of high priced contractors increases.  The Union, at all levels, must force the Corporation to find solutions to the multitude of problems facing the RSMC members, especially the lack of a route measurement system.  The Calgary Local will continue represent the RSMC's in our area vigorously on these issues. 

On April 30th the Regional and Local will participate in consultations on CPC’s  proposed schedule changes to the Parcels, Pubs and Admail, and Premium Products sections of CMPP.  These consultations, at the Unions insistence, will also include discussions on duties and rotation of duties.  At first CPC only wanted to discuss the work schedules and maintained they would discuss the duties and rotations of duties at a later date. 

It’s the Locals belief that schedules, duties and rotations of duties are essentially linked.  The importance of workable schedules is crucial to the quality of life for our members.  Split RDO’s and Friday night shifts with early Saturday starts are a cruel and insensitive burden on our members and their families.  The Corporation is forever saying how important the work/life balance is, but their practice of these issues speak differently.  The Union will do what it can to protect our members from a continuation of this onerous policy on schedules.

As I have mentioned in the past, the ongoing and destructive issue of harassment and violence in the workplace persists and in fact is growing.   The Corporation needs to treat these issues very seriously.  The employer should be creating workplaces and work environments that place the needs of the worker at the forefront of their priority list.  Workers who are treated with respect are less likely to treat others with a lack of respect.  Once again in the strongest of terms, no matter how stressful or frustrating our daily lives are we have no right to attack one another.  We must face this problem together.  Standing together we will prevail against this ugly problem.

In Solidarity,
Robert Scobel
Robert Scobel
President Calgary Local CUPW
 
 

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