BCGEU president Stephanie Smith met yesterday with Mike Morris, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General. Also attending the meeting were BCGEU vice presidents Dean Purdy (Corrections and Sheriff Services-Component 1) Doug Kinna, (Social, Information and Health-Component 6) and Lori Joaquin (Administrative Services-Component 12) along with the Component 12 first vice chair Maria Middlemiss. Minister Morris was accompanied by his senior staff.

At the meeting our union raised a number of key issues with the Minister, including:

• The significant increase in violent assaults in B.C.’s provincial prisons
• Opening the remaining closed living units in the prisons
• Low Workplace Environmental Survey scores in Community Corrections which were also reflected in a recent BCGEU internal survey of these members
• The backlog processing immediate roadside prohibitions at RoadSafetyBC
• The time and leave management system at BC Corrections which is delaying the payment of wages to staff.

“This meeting gave us the opportunity to meet with the new minister and raise important concerns of many of our frontline members,” said Stephanie Smith. “We offered the minister concrete suggestions on how we can improve the working conditions for our members and at the same time improve the delivery of public services.”

“We will be looking for opportunities to move these issues forward and to work with the Minister and ministry staff to make these important improvements,” said Smith.