Your union served 72 hours' strike notice to the LRB and the employer on August 5th. Job action will commence on Monday, August 9th, with Work-to-Rule and an Overtime ban. 

What is Work-to-Rule? Job action in which workers do their jobs exactly as outlined by their collective agreement or job description, and precisely follow all safety or other regulations which may cause a slowdown or stall productivity. Workers are no longer checking emails or answering texts during breaks, there's no unpaid extended hours, no traveling on duty, no extra tasks and no overtime or working on weekends. Members will be taking their coffee and lunch breaks on a regular basis and will not work outside their specified regular hours.

Work-to-rule means no longer setting aside rules for the sake of office efficiency and refraining from activities which are customary, but not required by rule or job description. For instance, watering office plants and washing other people's dishes are not required by job description and will thus not to be performed. We are not responsible for the Constituency Office's understaffing and high work load and we are not here to go above and beyond for the employer, as we normally do.

Work-to-rule does not involve walking off the job and does not include picket lines, so strike pay provisions do not apply. We expect you to continue to be paid as normal by the employer. 
Work-to-rule can be combined with other non-strike actions such as rallies, solidarity stickers/buttons, MS Teams solidarity backgrounds, social media campaigns, etc. 

Reminder: 

• Do not accept any voluntary overtime.
• Cancel any advanced voluntary overtime.
• Do not answer employer calls or messages on off hours, on breaks, lunches or non-work hours
• Take all breaks, and only work scheduled work hours. 
• If a member of the public or stakeholder asks any questions outside of your job description, do not provide an answer. Direct them to your employer.

The work-to-rule strategy is just the first step in our strike activities. Other types of strikes, including a general strike, rotating strikes, and strategic strikes, are all options under consideration for the next phases as we ramp up our job action. 

Further information will be provided on Monday. Many of you have reached out with questions and your Bargaining Committee will be assembling a FAQ for distribution with the answers.

In solidarity,

Andrea McDonald, Bargaining Committee Chairperson 
Preet Sangha, Bargaining Committee member
Deanna Fasciani, Bargaining Committee member
Linsay Buss, Staff Representative – Negotiations

Download PDF of notice here

UWU/MoveUP