Food workers to consider job offer Monday, after contract flip at Mount Allison
Mount Allison’s food workers have a big decision to make on Monday, when members of CUPE Local 1440 will consider an offer from the school’s new dining services contractor, Chartwells Canada.
Local 1440 president Jason Tower says his members “know we have to give up some stuff,” in the establishment of the new contract. “We get that completely, because it’s a new company,” said Tower from a CUPE convention in Fredericton on Thursday.
Mount Allison did not require bidders for its dining services contract to recognize the existing collective agreement with Local 1440 and its 45 members. That hasn’t always been the case.
Before 2006, a change in companies did not mean a mass firing and a fresh start in contract negotiations for unionized workers. Tower says that 2006 was the first time that a new company was not required to honour existing worker contracts. Since then, Mount Allison seems to have embraced the practice of ‘contract flipping’, where it seeks a new, low bidder without any requirement for that company to hire current staff, or honour their established contract.
In a news release the university says it followed, “procurement legislation and established norms within the University sector, which require periodic participation in open and competitive procurement processes.”
Tower says that on Monday he will meet with local members to show them the offer from Chartwells, and then hold a vote.… Continue
Monday on Tantramar Report: Voices from Sackville’s CUPE rally; health care and local government plans due this week
Listen to Tantramar Report for the following stories:
Sackville rallies behind CUPE and a tentative deal ends strike
Hundreds of Sackville kids will be heading to school today instead of firing up devices at home, thanks to a tentative agreement reached by CUPE and the province on the weekend.
The deal announced late Saturday evening ended a 2 week long strike by 7 CUPE locals, and a lockout by the provincial department of education.
Although CUPE and the government had been close on wages for most of the strike, the point of contention in the negotiations appeared to be pensions. The government had been asking that two CUPE locals agree to change their pension plans to shift risk from the government to the plan members, and CUPE refused. In the end, the two parties agreed to a review of the pension plans, without committing to the ‘shared risk’ style preferred by Premier Blaine Higgs.
While negotiations were underway on Friday, a number of Sackvillians gathered at York and Main to show their support for CUPE members on strike. Bruce Wark was there to document the action, and brings us voices and perspectives from the rally on Tantramar Report.
COVID update: Zone 1 still seeing cases of unknown origin
There were 65 new cases of COVID-19 announced in New Brunswick on Sunday. More recoveries means the active case total dropped slightly to 534.… Continue