Excel GRC: A Vote is Coming Soon on the Company’s Offer
To our Excel GRC Members,
Your Union bargaining committee recently concluded the current phase of negotiations with the Company. While we can report that the employer’s offer does contain some improvements, we think the offer is problematic as it lacks any wage increases in 2024, 2025 and 2026.
Because of that missing piece in the offer, which we’ll talk about more in a moment, Local 401 cannot in good conscience recommend ratifying and accepting this agreement. However, this is your Union, and if you choose to accept the company’s latest offer, we will support whatever decision you reach.
Highlights from the Company’s Offer
In this round of negotiations, we achieved some genuine improvements through our dialogue.
- Shop Steward security. You have a very knowledgeable Shop Steward who courageously and continuously fights on your behalf for an improved workplace. You will always have Shop steward representation during any cycle of layoffs, who will serve as a layer of protection for all the employees at your workplace in the event that any of you are treated unfairly.
- Paid injury leave. In the event of workplace injuries, you will now receive fifteen (15) paid days (at 100% of your salary) instead of just ten (10) paid days. After you have received the complete fifteen (15) days of pay, you can then apply for your EI benefits.
- Education fund. Your Employer will now contribute to an education fund at your Union, which will provide you with the opportunity to learn new skills from professionals.
- 2023 wage increases. Your Union pushed for you to receive a ten (10%) percent lump sum increase in April 2023. Another 7.15% wage increase was implemented in July of 2023. Local 401, in fact, continuously pushes for better wages and benefits and for fairness in the workplace.
- Recognition of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The Employer has agreed to recognize this important day as a statutory holiday, with pay.
While these are all positive developments that we can build on, the Employer’s offer has some deficiencies that you should review before you accept the proposed deal. You may want to push for more.
One Problem: The Lack of Wage Increases
The Company’s offer contains no wage increases in 2024, 2025 and 2026. It’s a surprising move for this employer to ask you to essentially commit to a three-year wage freeze in the midst of an unprecedented affordability crisis.
Surely they must understand how difficult these times are for working people. It would seem that this is insensitive. They have an expensive lawyer representing them. If they can find the money for that, why can they not arrange their business affairs in such a way as to provide you with a modest wage increase during this three-year period?
“While I applaud the work your bargaining committee has done to realize a range of improvements and deliver real economic gains in 2023,” said President Thomas Hesse of UFCW Local 401: “I am very uncomfortable with an offer that does not have any regular yearly wage increases, especially in this economy.”
“Our caregiving members at the Gerard Raymond Center do incredibly noble work,” said the Union’s Secretary Treasurer Richelle Stewart. “That work needs to be recognized and respected, and it needs to be compensated accordingly.”
“When voting on Excel’s offer,” Union representative Shauna Robertson reminds us: “It’s important to realize that negotiations do not end in the event of members voting against it. Such a vote would simply send us into mediation.”
“In this economic environment,” added Robertson: “Many Union members are voting ‘no’ and trying to push for more. Our Union belongs to the workers, and they get to decide how the process plays out.”
Click here to see a useful video that explains the mediation process.
Mediation does not guarantee an improved offer, but things could not get worse. If you turn down the offer, we will apply to the Government of Alberta to have a mediator involved in the process. Sometimes, employers can have a harder look at bargaining in mediation, and sometimes things get better. If you vote yes for the offer, we will never know what might have happened in mediation.
We Will Be Scheduling a Vote Soon!
Ultimately, the choice is yours. The time is coming soon to make your voice heard on this potential matter.
Will there be a strike or lockout? Before a strike or lockout could ever occur, Local 401 will put whatever offer is on the table in front of you for another vote. Also, under Alberta law, a number of procedures must take place before there can ever be a legal strike, including a mandatory Labour Board-supervised vote where employees themselves decide whether or not to go on strike.
Local 401 cannot put you on strike. Similarly, the employer cannot lock you out without the employer taking their own special lockout vote, and until a number of procedural requirements are met under Alberta law.
In sum, it is important to know that your Union belongs to you. We are here to provide you with advice and professional representation and to guide you through this process, but at every stage of the process, you “own” the Union. It is through voting processes that you tell your Union what to do.
At Local 401, we are proud of our democratic traditions, and proud to say that our Union belongs to its members, who themselves accept and take the responsibilities associated with deciding their workplace’s future.
The Next Steps
As a result of negotiations, a document called a Memorandum of Agreement is being put together. We have written to you here to provide you with the positives and negatives relating to this.
The Memorandum of Agreement is in fact the Company’s offer of settlement. No actual agreement can take place unless you accept it.
This document is currently in the hands of Excel GRC’s lawyer, and we are waiting for him to send it to us so we can check it to ensure that it accurately reflects items tentatively agreed to. Again, we should emphasize the word tentative, because it will not and cannot become your contract unless you accept it.
Once this documentation has been double-checked, you will receive it, so that you can review it and decide how you wish to vote. The vote is called a Ratification Vote, and it will be scheduled for you to ensure you are able to participate once we are able to confirm that the documentation is all in order. We will advise when that is done and when the vote will be.
Please stand by for further updates!
In solidarity,
Your Union
UFCW Local 401
Posted on: July 25,2024