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| August 2010 News |
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| Friday, 20 August 2010 03:56 | |||
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INTERIM PRESIDENT DOUG JOHANNES There have been many changes this summer and a lot of work is being done by those of us still working here. As most everyone knows Mike is now working with the International and we have also faced some additional difficulties as Walter Moodie has been off work since early July and will not return before September. We hope he is well rested and ready to fulfill all of his duties when he finally does get back to work. We wish him a speedy recovery. In his absence, Bill Johnson, Chief Steward of Maintenance/Office has been performing all of his duties and doing an admiral job. On behalf of all of us that work in the office, a big thank you for a job well done Bill. The rest of the work has been divided between Rick Ratcliff and myself. Rick is looking after my obligations at Calgary HandiBus working with the Chair of that Bargaining Unit. He has also replaced Mike on the MEBAC and LAPP Committee’s. He is also doing some of the grievances. Again, a big thanks to him as well. Over the next few months we will be able to bring in additional help as required.As I stated in my last newsletter, we had a number of calls in the office about someone from Management stating that Calgary Transit wanted to offer travel time and coffee money to all Community Shuttle Operator’s but the Union refused to agree to it. As promised, I wrote a letter to Mr. Wong, Director of Calgary Transit and informed him that if that was in fact the City’s position, we would be happy to open the contract to add these benefits to the Collective Agreement. His reply was that they were unable to identify the person responsible for the comments made to these Shuttle Operators. However, he felt these matters would be best dealt with at negotiations and that the City would continue to follow the Collective Agreement. Let me assure you that as long as I remain in the office, these matters will be back on the negotiating table in the next round of negotiations. As many of you know, the City hired a number of Operators from Great Britain. They call themselves the Brits. The City was having difficulty hiring so they went to England to try to recruit new employees. They were successful in attracting less than 20. However, prior to these soon to be employees coming to Canada, the job market started to turn around again and Calgary Transit was able to hire in the Canadian market. Yet these employees were still offered employment and came in the hopes of starting a new life in this country. They came on a Labour Market Opinion (LMO) that Calgary Transit had obtained in the down market. This LMO allowed the Brits to come to Canada and work here for two years and then they would have to go home. It also only allowed the employee of Calgary Transit to work, not the spouse. This was explained to them in writing. However, they were all under the impression that there would be an ability to apply for citizenship. This never transpired and it appeared that they would all have to go back to Great Britain. One of the Brits was doing work in this regard and found that Winnipeg Transit had a different foreign worker program that would let them apply for residency. This plan also let the spouse seek employment. He notified Calgary Transit about it. They followed up and arrangements were made for the Training Department from Winnipeg to meet these employees. That was done and then interviews were set up in Winnipeg. Most of the Operators attended and have now been offered employment there. They will be hired over the next six months, with the first class starting in September. When the City brought these employees over, they paid them $5,500.00 to relocate here. However, according to the rules of the LMO, the City only has to pay for a return plane trip and only for the employee, not their family. Local 583 had a motion passed by the membership last spring to authorize us to negotiate a payment plan that would help these employees relocate once again, so they truly could start a new life in this country. We have met with Management a couple of times and have had numerous conversations with them. I am happy to say they have moved off their original position of the cost of an air plane ticket and we should be able to reach a settlement in the next few days. At the last Health and Safety meeting it was brought to the Committee’s attention that there have been a lot of Multi Nova tickets. The majority of the tickets seem to be when people are returning to the garage at the end of the shift. As well, there are a lot of tickets in the Dalhousie playground zone area. I know it is important to get home and be with the family as soon as possible after the end of your shift. Let’s all take a few minutes to think about how we are driving. Also considering the cost of Multi Nova tickets being as high as they are, I am certain that we would all rather spend that money on ourselves instead of the Government. Remember the old saying, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. FINANCIAL SECRETARY-TREASURER RICK RATCLIFF I would like to thank everyone for making the ATU 583 Family Picnic a success, participants and volunteers alike. We were treated to a warm, sunny day and all events ran smoothly. I think the highlight of the day was the tug-o-wars. The competition was fierce and evenly matched. Once again the Local offered participation prizes, Dairy Queen and Orange Julius gift cards valued at $1.00, to everyone that took part in a competition. This leads to the one glitch we were burdened with, some of the Orange Julius cards didn’t seem to get activated. The vendor has promised to honour the cards for their $1.00 value at the Market Mall Food Court location. If anyone has further problems with the cards, please contact myself in the office. Kudos to the Social Committee for another job well done. It seems the signals on the year old N.W. extension have finally started to be relocated. The feedback from the Operators has been positive. One still has to wonder why it took a year. This issue was brought to the LRT Rules Committee ages ago and getting the parts in was given as the reason. The long awaited parts look like glorified muffler clamps. I bet our inhouse fabricators could have done a quicker and better job. On to Local 583 endorsements. Recently different work areas have been claiming the Local “endorses”, “agrees”, “suggests” a policy or such, has been “approved”. A perfect example is in the Call Center where an email was sent stating Local 583 approved the new Call Center Sign-up. Totally unfounded. We are actually working with the area members to have the old Sign-up restored. If anyone suggests the Local is endorsing any company prerogatives, don’t believe it without checking with our office first. Our agreements are in writing and are signed by the President after discussion at the Executive Board. Our office has been flooded with calls recently on two issues, the Code of Conduct Campaign and the pay cycle change. The Local has been informed that the “Code of Excellence/Conduct in Municipal Management” booklets are to be distributed to all Transit employees. If you received one you are not special or being singled out. Some Supervisors have distributed them more quickly than others. The document informs every one of their workplace obligations and is full of examples. If anyone has any questions on the policy they are advised in the booklet to talk to their Manager’s. If there had been a note in the Calgary Transit News Clips or a general bulletin posted, this may have made this document more easily accepted. The pay cycle change will almost wholly affect the Office members. The majority of our membership (Operator’s, Maintenance) are already on the “actual” pay cycle. The “predicted” payees would get wages based on what they were forcasted to work and have corrections made for unexpected shift changes. The City is not allowed to take wages back off your cheque without the members permission. So if you don’t give permission, monies can’t be recovered. That decision was made recently by an Arbitrator for the Firefighters. The City will now pay “predicted” members only after the hours have been worked (“actual”). There are a few options being offered to help members through this trying pay adjustment. One was advertised in the News Clips for City Plus Credit Union (Local 583 has money on deposit there, so we recommend their use) without any detail to the unfolding situation. Some detail on the situation might have given those not affected no reason to panic. On to our members at Calgary HandiBus. It seems there is a move on to deny work trades in the spirit of safety. It is apparently unsafe to operate your bus, even if you VOLUNTEER to do so, without taking one day off a week. We won’t grieve the situation here, but it is being grieved in the proper forum and this looks like an issue worth going to Arbitration on. The sad news is some members won’t be able to trade days to take extra time off this summer because the denials are running congruent with the summer holiday season. Work trading is a long standing practice and Local 583 will battle this to our favourable end. Sorry to rant on, hope everyone had a good summer. Just as we go to press, the office has been informed an LRT Operator was terminated. The crux of the termination surrounds his overriding the overspeed shut down. Others are apparently going to be investigated for the same issue. Overriding the overspeed shutdown allows the train to travel over posted limits. This is a design flaw in the train’s operation. We would ask all LRT Operator’s to follow the posted speed limits. More to follow next issue. ACTING RECORDING SECRETARY – MAINTENANCE/OFFICE REP. BILL JOHNSON Good day to all. I sincerely hope that everyone is enjoying their summer, whether on vacation, or on the job and that it has been a safe, healthy and happy one. It is extremely busy in this office and I have been asked to assist with the duties of the Recording Secretary – Maintenance/Office Rep. I have been assigned the responsibility of cleaning up a large number of outstanding grievances. I am doing my best to get my head wrapped around my added duties and I am certainly up for the challenge. A big thank you to Doug and Rick for their assistance in helping me do my job. I really appreciate the opportunity to relieve in the office working with the other Officers, the amazing staff, as well as fielding calls from the members and dealing with their issues, preparing grievances and taking minutes are all part of the day to day duties. We have met with Dragan Vasic with respect to the issues brought forward about the Arboc buses. He assured us that he would schedule a meeting with the two Shuttle Operators who have taken a keen interest in resolving the issues surrounding the Arboc deficiencies. The other people that will be present at the meeting will be a Local 583 representative, a mechanic and a bodyman. We expect to be having this meeting in the near future. I would also like to let you know that this office deals with an extremely large number of call-ins. This involves members being called in to a Supervisor’s office for questioning. If Management is calling you in, please keep in mind; there is a Labour decision from the United States known as the WEINGARTEN RIGHTS. It states that, “if this discussion could in any way lead me to being disciplined or terminated, or affect my personal working conditions, I respectfully request that my Union Representative, Officer, or Steward be present at this meeting. Without representation present, I choose not to participate in this discussion”. Please contact the office so that a representative may attend. We have three different elections to be concerned with this year. We have the International’s election, the Civic election and of course our Local’s election. First of all, the ATU International election, Local 583’s membership and your Executive Board unanimously support the top three Officers, International President, Mr. Ron Heintzman, International Executive Vice-President, Mr. Randy Graham and International Secretary Treasurer, Mr. Oscar Owens. This election will take place at the end of September 2010. Closer to home, our Civic election will take place in October 2010. It looks like there will be a full slate for the Mayor’s position and several vacated Wards will have new representation. I certainly hope that everyone will take an active interest in learning about the candidates that will govern this great City of ours. Also coming up in December 2010 will be the ATU Local 583 election, talk to your representatives to get first hand information. There seems to be a lot of member to member conflicts happening lately. Please keep in mind, Local 583 does have a Conflict Resolution Committee in place to deal with member to member issues. Please talk to us FIRST!! It is good to ACT not REACT. If Management gets involved, discipline is often levied. It has been brought to our attention that the refrigerator and microwave at VP garage lounge have not been cleaned for a long time. I contacted Mr. Fred Wong about this issue and he stated that this is not the responsibility of the contractor. He also said that these appliances were supplied for the use and convenience of the employees. Calgary Transit will get these appliances cleaned and then it will be the responsibility of the people who use them to keep them clean. In the spirit of working together and keeping things moving freely; when Operators bring their bus back to the garages, I would like to remind the Operators to check your bus for lost and found and to close all your windows. The Service Lane employees and the Operators behind you will appreciate it, as well, it saves dirt and dust from getting into the Units. I would like to remind you that the annual Calgary and District Labour Council BBQ is coming up September 6, 2010 at Olympic Plaza. All members are welcome and they are looking for volunteers. Feel free to join us for free food and entertainment to help those in need. If you can volunteer, you can contact the CDLC at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or you can call them at 403-262-2390. FOR YOUR INFORMATION….. THANK YOU CARDS RECEIVED Neil Armitage Brian Beattie Jean-Michel Dumoulin Floyd Nix Ken McCartney Jim Ross Karin Vanables CONGRATULATIONS On Their Retirement Darlene Kohut – HandiBus – June 2010 Gerard Marion – Office – July 2010 Irene Shukys – Operator – August 2010 Dave Cummins – Operator – Sept. 2010 RETIREES CORNER Just a Reminder: The next meeting will be Sept. 13, 2010 (Second Monday, September only) @ 7:00 p.m. at Spring Gardens garage, +15 (3rd Floor). The next luncheon will be Sept. 21, 2010 @ 1:00 p.m. at the Elk’s Golf Club, 2502 – 6 St. NE. The following luncheon will be Oct. 19/10 at Swiss Chalet South, 8900 MacLeod Tr. SE.
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| Last Updated on Friday, 20 August 2010 03:59 |