Since March of 2019, your bargaining committee has met for 15 days of bargaining preparations. Unfortunately, during these preparations one of your elected committee members had to step down for personal reasons in November. We are confident that the remaining members of your bargaining committee will represent your interests effectively.

In those preparatory meetings of the bargaining committee, we:

Reviewed your submitted bargaining survey results so that we could better understand your priorities and guide our work;

Evaluated the entire existing collective agreement and identified sections to propose improvements or appropriate updates;

Assessed other collective agreements, benefits plans, and various supporting materials to evaluate against our current agreement and proposals;

Met with members with program specific concerns; 

Reviewed trends in grievances and heard input from stewards and your staff representative; and

Brainstormed new proposals and ideas to bring forward to the bargaining table, including both monetary and non-monetary initiatives.

On January 29 and 30, your bargaining committee met with the employer to exchange our initial bargaining packages. We are confident that we have put forward a comprehensive package of proposals that reflect your bargaining priorities. The employer has also tabled proposals that require our careful consideration and review. 

The parties were able to reach agreement on some preliminary matters during these two days of negotiations, but an additional week of bargaining has been scheduled for April 20 through 24 inclusive. We will be using the intervening time to narrow our focus and determine how to best find common ground to achieve your bargaining priorities.

We will keep you updated as we continue through this process. Thank you for your continued support. 

Please ensure that the BCGEU has your current mailing and email address so that you can be kept up to date on bargaining. The link to update your member information is: https://my.bcgeu.ca/update-profile. 

In solidarity,

Marcela Popovici, Bargaining Committee Chair
Dennette Frisby, Bargaining Committee Member
Sherri Rudeloff, Bargaining Committee Member 
Linsay Buss, BCGEU Staff Representative – Negotiations
Andrea Davis, BCGEU Staff Representative -- Negotiations 

Download PDF of notice here

UWU/MoveUP