INFORMATION & UPDATES
This is a place for union updates/information regarding MEC Victoria’s recent union certification and your upcoming collective agreement bargaining. For further information/questions please contact union representative Stephen Portman at sportman@ufcw1518.com
Upcoming Events:
Proposals & Bargaining Committee Election Meeting:
Sunday, December 1 @ 7:00 p.m. – location TBA
Certification Vote Results
The ballot box containing your votes was unsealed by a judgement from the BC Labour Relations Board and the ballots were subsequently counted on Friday, November 15. The results of the vote are as follows: 58 ‘Yes’, 24 ‘No’, and 2 spoiled ballots. Approximately 90% of all store employees cast a vote, with a definitive 70% of votes showing a ‘Yes’ to join the union.
While we are pleased to see that over a two third majority of the employees at MEC Victoria were in favour of joining the union, we recognize that there are members who did not vote to join. We will fight for fairness for these workers by equal measure and look forward to hearing everyone’s concerns, regardless of how they felt about the union prior to the certification vote.
Communication with Members
The union communicates with the membership through a variety of channels including in person meetings, email, phone and social media. When a store first certifies with the union, the contact list that is available to our staff team is often incomplete as we are not permitted to access employees’ contact information during the certification process.
We ask that members on the shop floor contribute to our efforts at clear communication by talking to co-workers and sharing the digital communications that we send your way as much as possible. You can also help us by collecting your co-workers’ contact information (name, phone number & email) and forwarding these to Stephen Portman at sportman@ufcw1518.com. In the coming days, union leadership will be meeting with store management to discuss in-store communications from the union and it is our hope that we will be able to post meeting notices and other information in the store in the near future.
Bargaining Committee Selection
Members of the bargaining committee are responsible for working with the appointed union bargaining representative to prepare and respond to proposals that are being discussed at the bargaining table. In addition, the bargaining committee is responsible for communicating updates to union members throughout the bargaining process.
In order to ensure effective bargaining, the committee for MEC Victoria will be a combination of two (2) elected positions; and two (2) appointed positions. The four (4) member committee from Victoria will have an equal number of positions to the four (4) member MEC Vancouver committee, for a total of an eight (8) member joint committee.
The Victoria Committee will consist of individual members from a variety of departments across the store with consideration to principles of diversity. The two (2) appointed positions will be chosen by union leadership from the nominations received. After the appointed members have been selected, remaining nominations for departments without appointed representation, will have the opportunity to stand for election. The two (2) elected positions will be elected by in-person ballot, at our upcoming meeting on Sunday, December 1. You must attend the meeting to cast a vote. Voting will not be available online or by proxy. All of those nominated who are eligible (i.e. work in a department that does not have an appointed representative), will be invited to give a short presentation to the members at the selection meeting before the vote takes place.
Bargaining Committee Nominations
To nominate someone/yourself for your bargaining committee, you only need to send the following information to union representative Stephen Portman at sportman@ufcw1518.com no later than midnight on Thursday, November 28:
- Full name of nominee
- Their job role
- Brief description of what the nominee will bring to the committee
Bargaining Proposals
A proposal is a term of employment that workers wish to have included in the collective agreement. We will be taking bargaining proposals at our upcoming meeting on Sunday, December 1. In the meantime, or if you are able to attend the upcoming meeting, you can also send your proposals by email to Stephen Portman at sportman@ufcw1518.com.
Binding Mediation
Binding mediation, in bargaining, is a process by which an arbitrator from the Labour Board is selected to review the position of both the union and the employer, following which, a final ruling is made on the collective bargaining agreement for the first contract period.
MEC Victoria, through the bargaining committee, will be given the opportunity to present unique proposals and information to the arbitrator that has not yet been included in the bargaining process to date.