Local 88 – Conciliation Talks Scheduled for March 7

The Union and Employer are scheduled for conciliation today, Thursday, March 7th, 2013.  The Union’s goal is to achieve a tentative agreement with your Employer and avert a strike. Please watch for an email update from your Local containing the outcome of conciliation as soon as it is known.

The Union has given its 48-hour notice to the Minister of Labour of strike action in accordance with the Trade Union Act. It is normal for NSGEU to give notice during the 14-day countdown to a strike. As communicated earlier, a strike won’t be called until a meeting is held with Local 88 members. This meeting is scheduled for Friday, March 8th, 2013.

The Employer is also preparing for a potential strike and has provided direction to managers including clarifying job duties of Local 88 members, requesting a return of St. F.X. property including cell phones, laptops, office keys, etc. You are expected to cooperate with your manager, but if you have any concerns, please contact any member of your bargaining committee.

The following is another Question and Answer concerning job evaluation.

Q. I am not happy where my job falls under the new salary groups. What can I do about that?

A. Since the information that shows job titles and corresponding bands or groups (1 to 8) was distributed by the Employer, some members have asked about an appeal process.

The following processes have been agreed upon subject to reaching a new agreement with the Employer.  So, once a new agreement is voted on and accepted by Local 88 (referred to as “ratifying the tentative agreement”), the following timelines for job evaluation will commence:

• Within 10 or  20 days of the date of ratification by Local 88 members (the number of  days not yet resolved), the Employer will notify individual members of their job title, the total point score of their position and their salary       band (1 to 8);
• Within 45  days of the date of ratification, the Labour Management Committee is to meet and review the Job Description Template in order to create a Job Fact Sheet;
• Within 90 days of the date signing of the Agreement, the Union may initiate the  appeal process.

New Job Fact Sheet:  The first process is for the Labour Management Committee to review the St. F.X. Job Description Template that has been used to create job descriptions for Local 88 positions with the idea of creating a Job Fact Sheet (JFS).  This JFS would be used for the appeal process, as described in the next paragraph, and for future job evaluations of Local 88 positions. The creation of the proposed JFS will be a priority of NSGEU over the next few weeks. We are confident that a JFS will be agreed upon between the Union and Employer.

Appeal Process for the Job Evaluation Project:  The new agreement will include a process whereby the Union can request that 25 Local 88 positions be appealed with the Employer. The Union’s process will include contacting individual Local 88 members, providing them with their job description used to evaluate their position, and asking them to complete the Job Fact Sheet within a specified period of time if they are not satisfied with the result of the job evaluation of the position.

The Union will review the Job Fact Sheets received from members and follow-up with each individual member who completed the form. The Union will then determine which positions they will bring forward to the Employer to appeal.  If the Union and Employer cannot agree on the points assigned to the appealed position, the evaluation of the position will then will then go to a third party, the Hay Consultant, for final determination.

The Union’s goal was to achieve an appeal process for members who are dissatisfied with the outcome of their job evaluation. The Union has had a number of concerns over job descriptions since the first collective agreement, as there is a possibility that not all necessary information about positions was obtained to allow for a fair evaluation of positions. The Union is confident that the above-outlined process will address any concerns about the information gathered about Local 88 positions moving forward, as well as provide an opportunity for the Union to discuss individual job evaluations with members.

Should you have any questions or concerns, please contact a member of your Bargaining Committee or the NSGEU Labour Resource Centre at 424-4063 or e-mail us at inquiry@nsgeu.ca.

Bargaining Committee

Karen Hamelin   khamelin@stfx.ca

Brenda McKenna    bmckenna@stfx.ca

Sheldon MacDonald   smacdona@stfx.ca

Tina Webber, Chief Negotiator

424-4063

1-877-556-7438

twebber@nsgeu.ca