CANDIDATE FOR VICE PRESIDENT

As a Vice President, I will work strongly, side by side with the Provincial Executive, Components, Locals, Affiliates, Staff, and especially the rank and file of the BCGEU to advance our common interests.

I want to start this conversation with you by highlighting those common interests, goals and values. I ask you to view this article as the beginning of a conversation, and I strongly encourage your thoughts, opinions, arguments and feedback. Improving our communications is essential to my campaign platform, and I strongly believe we should reflect the change we want to see in our organization on a daily basis.

Collective Bargaining

One of the biggest challenges facing our union comes in the form of existing Collective Agreements and those yet to
be negotiated. Employers in both the public and private sector have been asking for wage, staff and benefit reductions, while using the global economic recession as a justification for eroding gains that have taken decades to achieve.

We’ve seen our wages and benefits eroded by inflation, while some of our members face difficult collective bargaining sessions that threaten their livelihood and standard of living.

In the next round of Collective Bargaining for the Government Master Agreement, and in all of our bargaining in both the public and private sectors, we need to send an unequivocally strong message – that corporate tax breaks will not be balanced on the backs of our membership.

Under no circumstances should our Union accept another  “zero and zero” agreement. In times of economic austerity we have tightened our belts, and we expect to make up for lost ground as the economy recovers.

Communications

We need to do better when it comes to communicating with our membership. We need to reach out to our members in the way in which they are able to receive communications, in a timely manner.

It is our responsibility to reach our membership in ways that are familiar and accessible to them, and in which they can give feedback — the old system of printed membership lists and fax alerts on bulletin boards no longer connects with our members.

When we unveil new communications initiatives, we need to follow up with our membership to make sure we’re doing the best we can to communicate. We need to provide our Locals and Components with digital membership lists, and increase our utilization of email and our website. Our communications must be accessible and two-way, not a linear line from the union office to the members.

Political Action

Our union has a proud tradition of supporting Political Action that is consistent with the values of working people.

The BCGEU has an international reputation, and has regularly participated in key labour events in North and South America, Europe and Southeast Asia, while focusing right here in BC to build partnerships with labour, community and environmental groups. Together we can build the kind of future we can all enjoy.

We need to take political action right to our membership. Too often, we enact campaigns from above, or try to push our members into supporting political organizations. To me this is exactly the opposite of what we need to be doing.

Campaigns should come from communicating with and listening to what our members want, so our issues become popular issues that the majority of our members have a vested interest in getting involved in and actively supporting.

We should be articulating positions that benefit working people, so that political organizations are forced to support our membership, not the other way around.

Our Union

Our union is unique in that we are a diverse coalition of many unions in one. Our diversity is our strength, because when united we can leverage our collective resources to efficiently serve and express the interests of our membership.

We are a single union because we have realized that our collective voices carry more weight together than divided. Unity requires work to maintain, and the incredible diversity that is our strength needs to be regularly nourished.

Often times there are competing influences – public and private sector, urban and rural, and sometimes professions with radically different interests.
We need to work hard to build the lasting connections that ensure our diversity continues to be our strength, and I believe the position of  Vice President is uniquely suited to accomplish this task on the Provincial Executive and across the union.

Experience

I started my involvement in the labour movement over a decade ago, working on minimum wage and political action campaigns.  For two years, I served as the Finance Executive and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Camosun College Student Society. I spearheaded a coalition of progressive student unions that included the UVic Graduate Students, SFU, UBC, Kwantlen, and Capilano.

In the BCGEU I’ve served as a Shop Steward in local 1201, on both my Local and Component Executives, and as the Co-Chair of the Joint Union-Management (Article 29) Committee for the Ministry of Citizens’ Services.

I’ve also served on two advisory committees to the Provincial Executive. I have attended numerous Labour Movement functions and conventions, including a recent Environmental conference sponsored by the BC Federation of Labour.

Experience alone is not enough, and I believe it is my firm commitment to fight for and achieve our shared goals that qualifies me to serve as Vice President for the next three years.

In Solidarity,
Paul Finch

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