Delivering the same benefits to every union worker is a question that may not have been settled - but the Outside workers are happy.

BNews 100 bluey Pepper Parr

July 2, 2015

BURLINGTON, ON

When it is in their best interests, city hall knows how to move.

CUPE Local 44 (outside and arena/outdoor pool operators) completed their ratification vote at 3:00 pm on Thursday July 2nd – at 3:48 pm the city issued a media release saying they were pleased to announce that both the members of CUPE Local 44 (outside and arena/outdoor pool operators) and City Council have ratified a three-year collective agreement, which runs from July 1, 2014, to June 30, 2017.

There were no mention of the details of the settlement agreement.

What the Gazette found a little confusing was how the city could accept an agreement without it being ratified by the union.

City Hall BEST aerial

Access to meetings and critical documents is not what the public thinks it is.

That was easy – the city held a special council meeting – it didn’t advise the media of the Special Council meeting at which they were briefed on the tentative agreement that was awaiting ratification. They apparently said that if the union ratified the agreement that was tentative at that point –  then it was understood that the city had agreed.

That sounded a little slick but Roy Male, the Executive Director or Human Resources emailed the Gazette saying: “We did this to be proactive to speed up the approval process to remove any uncertainty in the public’s mind about the services which may have been affected.”

Fine – but the city didn’t issue a statement after that June 30th meeting which media didn’t attend because they were not advised.

To be fair the city does put a notice of meetings in the mail slot each media has however most of us don’t trot over to city hall to see if there is any mail every couple of hours.

When the Mayor wants to call a Special Meeting of Council there is a rigid procedure he has to follow. That procedure should include an electronic noticed to the media. Given that the Mayor has a full time media person in his office he can’t say he isn’t aware of how media works.

The Mayor doesn’t talk to the Gazette anymore. A number of months the Mayor decided he didn’t like what we were saying about him and decided he wasn’t going to return our phone calls. We didn’t know this was the position the Mayor had taken until we asked why phone calls were not being returned.

That is when he told the Gazette we were not fair or balanced.

We have never had the Mayor tell us precisely what it is we were saying that was not fair and balanced.

Krantz and John Vice

Milton Mayor Krantz explains to Conservation Halton how the media works.

A few weeks ago the Gazette was in Milton covering a Conservation Halton awards event and met with Gord Krantz, Mayor of Milton, who commented to John Vice, chair of the Conservation Board that he never worried about what the media said about him – he worried when the media stopped saying anything about him. Krantz has been Mayor of Milton for 25 years. Burlington’s Mayor should spend a little more time with Gord Krantz when they cross paths at Regional Council.

Burlington is not a media friendly town. City managers tend to set the tone on what comes out of city hall; each council members decides what they want in the way of a relationship with media. Some council members have particularly thin skins and don’t handle criticism all that well.

But we digress.

According to union negotiators the pressing issue for them was benefits for those workers who were over the age of 65. While the collective agreement that was in place called for the city to pay the same benefits to all employees the union was not aware that they weren’t being paid because there were no members over the age of 65.

The Outside workers ratified their agreement – union negotiators will not say if the benefits issue was resolved; they added that they do not have any workers over the age of 65.

The transit union does have workers over the age of 65 who are not getting the same benefit package as those who are under 65.

educated union member_editedThe union maintains that they were not aware that union members were being treated differently – it wasn’t until they began getting complaints from union members over 65 that the problem came to their attention.

Apparently the city instructed their benefits provider not to give the same benefits to everyone.

It is clear that there isn’t a collaborative working arrangement between the union and the city’s human resources department.

It will be interesting to see if the transit works ratify the agreement.

Another confusing point; both unions are CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) members. Why would one union – Local 44 ratify the agreement before the Local 2723 – the transit union if the matter of benefits mattered to both?

We thought solidarity was the glue that gave the union its clout.

Splash pad LaSalle - swimming

Splash pads are guaranteed to be open for the summer – gives the kids a place to play and keep the heat off the members of council

In its media release the city said: “ Thanks to the co-operation of CUPE and our employees, it is business as usual for city services that include outdoor pools, summer ice use, all sports fields and all outdoor maintenance services.”

At the closed council meeting of June 30th the city passed a Bylaw # 71-2015 to confirm the proceedings of Special Council at its meeting held Tuesday, June 30, 2015, being read a first, second and third time.

Fine – what did the Bylaw say: Can’t tell you – it wasn’t published and you can’t get it instantly online. Here is what the city says about Access to Bylaws

“The City of Burlington provides online versions of bylaws for information and reference purposes only. Posted documents are not consolidated with all possible amending and repealing bylaws: users refer to these online documents at their own risk. For the greatest level of accuracy and reliability, please obtain a certified copy of a bylaw and its applicable amending bylaws from the Clerks department: contact Service Burlington at 905-335-7600, or email records@burlington.ca.”

This is not the mark of an open, transparent government.

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1 comment to Delivering the same benefits to every union worker is a question that may not have been settled – but the Outside workers are happy.

  • Centerline

    The Mayor is correct, you are not fair and balanced, so who can blame him.
    As far as Union solidarity goes, you fail to mention that there is a 3rd CUPE local #1540 that represents Engineering,Traffic and Technical Employees. About 55 members.
    That local settled and ratified their contract in April of this year.Basically a status quo contract with minimal increases over 2 1/2 years.

    Editor’s note: Why would we mention a union contract that was settled in April? One of the reasons we didn’t mention it was because the city did not put out a media release.