Most of the news outlets continue to focus on the negotiations between the City and the inside workers (CUPE 15). For ongoing coverage, see:


“Inside staff respond to offer” (Vancouver Sun, August 28, 2007, pp. B1, B6)

“Union leader calls for mediator” (The Province, August 28, 2007, p. A6)

“Indoor workers prepared to cut own deal” (Metro Vancouver, August 28, 2007, p. 3) [not available on the web]

“Union, city want a deal” (24 Hours, August 28, 2007, p. 3)

“City of Vancouver receives counter offer from striking inside workers” (CBC British Columbia, August 27, 2007)

Also appearing in today’s Sun is a column by CUPE BC President Barry O’Neill entitled “City’s failure to negotiate keeps its workers on strike” (August 28, 2007, p. A13).

O’Neill summarizes CUPE’s position on the current labour dispute:

“In many ways, this strike has been about the right of unions to represent the concerns of its members at the bargaining table. The city’s refusal to acknowledge this right is what has pushed Vancouver civic and the library workers on strike and continues to keep them there, disrupting public services, our city and countless lives.”

He goes on to quote the 2007 Supreme Court ruling related to Bill 29:

“The right to bargain collectively with an employer enhances the human dignity, liberty and autonomy of workers by giving them the opportunity to influence the establishment of workplace rules and thereby gain some control over a major aspect of their lives, namely, their work.”

We strongly recommend reading O’Neill’s column which reminds us of the “big picture” issues at stake.

News from across the water…

The Victoria Times Colonist reports this morning (p. B1) that the library workers at the Greater Victoria Public Library are on the verge of going out on strike for the first time in the 60 year history of their union local. Ed Seedhouse, president of CUPE 410, which represents the library employees, is quoted as saying it would take a miracle to prevent a strike. As is the case here at VPL, the key issues are pay equity and improved benefts for auxiliary employees. The union maintains that library workers were promised pay equity with Victoria municipal employees 10 years ago but that no progress has been made.

Seedhouse notes that “…the parking lot attendant at the parkade beneath the Broughton Street main library is paid $20.30 an hour, while a library clerk who checks out books is paid $17.58. A librarian with six years of post-secondary education is paid $27.66 an hour, while a research analyst with the city, who also likely has post-secondary education, is paid $30.97.”

The mediator booked out of negotiations yesterday but the union, which represents 220 library employees, has yet to issue 72 hours strike notice.

The Greater Victoria Public Library encompasses 8 branches and is funded by 10 member municipalities. The employer and the union bargain through the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association.

To read the fulltext of the article, go to: “Library staff poised to strike: pay equity, treatment of auxiliaries main stumbling blocks”

And closer to home…

Tom Sandborn from The Tyee (thetyee.ca) takes Vancouver’s NPA dominated City Council to task in a guest column in today’s Vancouver Courier (p. 10). Sandborn maintains that Vancouver holds the dubious distinction of being the only CUPE employer to push its unionized workers into taking strike action three times over the last ten years (each strike occurred with the NPA in power).

Sandborn counters the expensive anti-union spin which has been a regular feature of the City’s public communications during the current labour dispute:

“Civic workers in Vancouver are not greedy thugs out to pillage the city’s coffers. That place in the city’s ecology has already been filled by developers and P3 contractors busy running up the metre on construction of the RAV Ravine and other disastrous Olympic legacies. Civic workers, in contrast, deliver value for money every day, when not kept from their jobs by city stonewalling.”

Sandborn makes particular mention of the library union’s struggle for pay equity. He laments that a swift end to the current strike seems unlikely at the present time, but recommends that the mayor and city managers might want to avail themselves of the library’s collections and services to educate themselves on topics such as pay equity, gender justice and fair labour relations once the dispute is resolved and the library reopens. 

To read the fulltext of the article, go to “Labour relations strain under NPA reign”

From August 30, 2007 Newspapers

Congratulations again to everyone who participated in last week’s march and rally at City Hall. There was lots of coverage in the August 30th newspapers:

“City Hall is anti-union, strikers day” (Globe & Mail, pS3)

“Strikers Take to Streets” (24hrs, p3)

“Frustration erupts in six-week strike” (Metro Vancouver, p3)

“Striking workers hitting financial straits (Metro Vancouver, p3)

“Hundreds turn out for strike rally” (Vancouver Sun, ppB1, B4)

“Strikers tell mayor it’s his call on a deal: 2000 rally at city hall” (The Province, pA6)

On a less positive note, Vancouver Sun guest columnist John Mortimer perpetuates a common myth of the anti-union movement, namely that unions want to eliminate merit as a factor in hiring, scheduling and promotion practices, and have seniority govern all job competitions (“Seniority Rules! (But it shouldn’t): Civic union locals are offside with demands that time on the job trump merit in promotions - Vancouver Sun, August 30, 2007, pA15.

Nothing could be further from the truth! Unions continue to recognize merit and performance as key elements in choosing the successful candidates for hiring and promotion opportunities. However, unions strongly believe that where merit is equal among candidates, seniority should come into play as the deciding factor between them.

What we have proposed to the Employer is that shifts for only auxiliary and Part-Time hours should be by seniority. When there is no job competition to determine competitive knowledge, skills, and abilities, we think it is reasonable to assume that seniority would be a fair way to deal with the assignment of hours. If the Employer is concerned about the merit of the employees, then the onus is on the Employer to hold a competition for each specific set of hours. Then if two employees are deemed relatively equal seniority applies.  Having said this, it is doubtful that the Employer would engage in this practice.

On the other side, what is so bad about seniority? Why shouldn’t a loyal, qualified employee not receive credit for the length of service to the employer?

Readers should note that John Mortimer is the President of the Canadian LabourWatch Association (http://www.labourwatch.com/home/index.php), an organization that claims to represent the interests of individual employees, particularly in their relationships with unions. They present information on such issues as union recruitment practices, bargaining unit certification (and de-certification), and how to cancel a union card. A casual perusal of their frequently asked questions (http://www.labourwatch.com/faqs/employee/bc/index.php) and their list of member organizations (http://www.labourwatch.com/about/members.php) reveals much about their true feelings about unions and where they stand on labour-management relations.

In a similar vein, Globe & Mail columnist Gary Mason claims that CUPE enjoys an unfair advantage in the battle for the hearts and minds of the public (“Nothing fair about this fight” - Globe & Mail, August 30, 2007, ppS1, S3 - note: electronic version of this column is available to paying subscribers only). He maintains that “CUPE has brilliantly pinned the blame for the entire affair on the city’s beleaguered mayor - it’s now ‘Sam’s Strike’ - while somehow persuading people its motives are not at all political.” Councillor Suzanne Anton made similar claims in the Georgia Straight (August 16-23, 2007, p16). See Hotsheet #1 for our response then. He also makes some statements that look as if they have been lifted directly from the City’s ads placed in the weekend editions of the newspapers over the past couple of weekends, including the spurious claim that compressed days are paid days off. See Hotsheet #2 for our take on that.

Unfortunately, there are some many things to address in this article we’re at almost at a loss as to what to speak to first. Nevertheless, we shall try. In addition to several other ridiculously inaccurate assessments of the labour dispute and working conditions, what Mr. Mason fails to understand is that from CUPE 391’s perspective this labor dispute is not and has never been about politics. Moreover, we would never, ever “sacrifice” any members for political gain.  This strike is about dealing with our issues and getting a fair collective agreement.

Further, like any businesses, organization, or individual, unions also have the right to make donations to municipal political parties that they feel will support their values. However, again, this does not mean that this labor dispute is political.  This dispute is driven specifically by city leaders and management who are not willing to deal with our key local issues in any fair way.

The only ones who have been trying to make this a political issue are the City of Vancouver who seem to think that the public will be swayed by their propaganda and several politicians who, rather than show their leadership by demanding that City Management find a way to settle the strike, seem to think they can gain political points with prospective Vancouver voters by using a incredibly unfortunate situation to their advantage.

From the very beginning the union made a conscious choice to tell the public the truth.  Our issues and proposals are well justified and do not need any spin or questionable tactics for the public to understand or support our position. It is not our fault that the public has seen through the Employer’s tactics and are aware of the indefensible position they have taken.

If indeed Mr. Mason is correct in asserting that the union is “winning the PR battle in this strike,” then the Greater Vancouver Regional Labour Relations Bureau and the City of Vancouver should fire the Wilcox Group and demand their money back!!

The current issue of The Georgia Straight includes a feature article on the library situation (“Boss and union tell different tales” - The Georgia Straight, August 30-September 6, 2007, p16). The article quotes Paul Whitney, Alex Youngberg and Todd Wong prominently. In the article, Paul Whitney claims that the Union has asked for an excess of 40% in wage and benefit increases over a 5-year term.  We are not sure of how Mr. Whitney came to this calculation, but his error was swiftly corrected by Alex Youngberg.

On the good news front …

Yesterday morning, the CBC read a letter from our own Kim McCarthy on air, and Kim has kindly given us permission to reprint the text of what she wrote here. Kim wrote her letter in response to Mayor Sam Sullivan’s appearance on Tuesday’s broadcast of Morning Edition with Rick Cluff:

“I welcome Mayor Sam Sullivan’s involvement in the Civic dispute at long last, although I would like to point out that in his interview, the Mayor, like other City officials, has omitted pertinent details regarding the City workers’ issues and offers made to them.

First of all, in Tuesday’s interview, Mayor Sullivan did not make a distinction between the three locals, all of whom have their own issues which need addressing. He simply said that the deal offered to CUPE was exactly the same as that offered to North Vancouver. Host, Rick Cluff, later clarified that the offer Sullivan was referring to applied only to CUPE 15. How “exactly the same” this offer is may be open to dispute. City negotiators also announced recently that the last offer made to CUPE 391 was “equal” to the 17.5% Burnaby offer. However, that offer falls short of Burnaby’s contract in that pay raise increments were to be staggered over the course of a year, for instance instead of a 3 % raise for the whole year, the library workers would receive 2% in January, and an additional 1% in September.

Needless to say, the staggered increments mean fewer dollars in our pockets at the end of the five year contract while the City saves at our expense. More importantly, the City’s offer did not address the library’s issue of “pay equity”, meaning equal pay for equal work regardless of gender.

It is incredible to me that in the 21st century we are still battling for pay equity for the library’s predominantly female work-force. Our local is only asking that we begin to address this issue by putting in place a framework from which to examine library positions and to compare them to similar positions in other municipal sectors. Burnaby’s contract has included an intention to begin the process to address pay equity in this round of negotiations. At the library, this humans rights issue is long overdue!”

Just a small note that in the Employer’s last proposal, pay increments are staggered as follows:

3% on Jan. 1, 2007; 2% on Jan. 1, 2008 AND 1% on Sept. 1, 2008; 3.5% on Jan. 1, 2009; 4% on Apr. 1, 2010; and 4% on Apr. 1, 2011

Again, it is important to note that in every other collective agreement settled to date, the pay increases have commenced on January 1st of each year.