Negotiations Update - Feb 22/06

Negotiations Update - Feb 22/06

As you may know, your negotiating committee had our first meeting with WEG yesterday. Steve Mitchell, WEG’s CFO, addressed the meeting with a reasonably detailed report on the WEG’s financial picture over the past few years and briefed us on their initiatives moving forward.

The balance of the meeting, and our next few sessions, can be characterized as “issue based discussions” as opposed to “position based”. That is to say that rather than exchanging “positions” on a particular item, both parties identify areas of concern or issues and discuss them in a broader, less formal format.

Only time will tell if this approach will yield positive results. Sooner or later these discussions will lead to more formalized positions.

It is our intention to use our previous Collective Agreement as the basis of our bargaining. This is the normal approach when re-negotiating a contract, although in theory all items are open for discussion. There was no indication in yesterday’s talks that WEG will move away from this model.

We have been, and are still receiving a heartening response from our questionnaire. As you can well imagine, it will take some time to distill all the feedback and this process will be completed over the next few weeks. Ultimately, the members will have to make decisions on these and other issues as they arise. This questionnaire is an encouraging beginning to this process.

We are scheduled to resume discussions with Woodbine next Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 27 & 28.

Further updates will be available as soon a possible.

PROGRESS REPORT ON NEGOTIATIONS & QUESTIONAIRE

RE: PROGRESS REPORT ON NEGOTIATIONS & QUESTIONAIRE

Hello Fellow Employees.

Watch you mailbox for a questionnaire from your negotiating commitee.

You can click on this link - QUESTIONAIRE - to download a copy.

Please return the questionnaire as soon as possible. We have negotiating meetings with Woodbine scheduled for February 21, 27 & 28. We plan on submitting our union proposals on February 27 or 28. We will modify our proposals to reflect the views of the membership.

At an appropriate time, we plan on having a bargaining unit meeting to report the progress of negotiations and review our proposals and recommendations.

We are pleased to launch our website and will be posting bargaining information as soon as it becomes available. So,






If you would like to receive information by email, please forward your address to our new official email address crwu@sympatico.ca .

We all want better wages, benefits, working conditions and job security--the skill is to prioritize, to identify significant issues and develop legitimate consensus and policy where necessary. This is a difficult and ongoing process; but it is the road to credibility. It is the responsibility of democratic leadership to show the way and lead the way and let the membership choose the way.

Yours sincerely,
Brian D Henderson President CRWU
519-856-0295 putz@cogeco.ca
John Stafford Vice President CRWU
519-534-9051 jrstafford@sympatico.ca
Susan Borbely Secretary-Treasurer CRWU
905-791-9018 sborbely1003@rogers.com

Bargaining Committee Members: Tracy Duenas, Daren Gomez, Wendy Heipel, Wayne Morning, Lennox Gonsalves(1st Alternate) & Mary Benini(2nd Alternate).