There will be financial training this month for some of our Officers. We are fortunate because we were able to receive this training at almost no cost to our Local.

The By-Law Committee met twice this month at the CUPE Offices to create a set of By-Laws that will govern our Local. After the By-laws are written they will be given to the members for approval.

After our members have approved them the Nation President of CUPE, Paul Moist needs to give final approval. If he suggests any changes, they will ne made at the next membership meeting then the By-Laws are final.

A copy of the finalized By-Laws will be available for download on the site.

Negotiations have begun.

We had 2 full day strategy meetings this month at the CUPE Offices.

We also had 3 bargaining sessions at the Y.

We are preparing for bargaining and it has been a very lengthy process. We had to create a Collective Agreement from scratch as we do not have one. All agreements are unique to every workplace so what we did was compare agreements from other agencies in the same sector and current agreements in the building. We took what we liked and left what we didn’t.

We requested submissions from all of our members via e-mail asking what you wanted to see in a Collective Agreement. Absolutely everything that anyone asked for has been inserted into our document that we will use to negotiate with the Y.

Negotiating means exactly that – give and take, so we will see what we end up with when we are done.

We had our first membership meeting this month.

By unanimous decision it was decided to begin deducting union dues at a rate of 1.5% immediately in order to pay for training and other things union related.

Elections were held for the following Officers positions:
President – Kim Brousseau – acclaimed
Vice-President – Terri Lynn George – acclaimed
Secretary-Treasurer – Deeqa Farah – acclaimed
Recording-Secretary – Debbie Pelekos – acclaimed
3-year Trustee – Valerie – acclaimed
2-year Trustee – Hillary Greer – acclaimed
1-year Trustee – Chantal Davis – acclaimed

Elections were held to the following Committee Chairs:
Bargaining Committee – Kim Brousseau – elected; Valerie – elected
By-Law Committee – Kim Brousseau – acclaimed; Valerie – acclaimed

The National Day of Mourning is an annual ceremony to remember and celebrate the lives of those who have lost their lives while on the job.

We will be having our first membership meeting in a couple of weeks.

We need to elect seven Officers; a President, Vice-President, Recording-Secretary, Secretary-Treasurer and 3 Trustees. The Executive Board does the business of the Local and is made up of our Local’s Officers, except for  the Trustees. Once a year the Trustees look over the books of the Local and provide recommendations to the Executive Board about our finances.

We also need to elect a chair for each of our five committees; the Bargaining Committee, the Social Committee, the By-Law Committee, The Joint Health and Safety Committee and the Grievance Committee.

All of the positions are for periods of 2 years except for the Trustees, which are overlapping 3 year terms.