COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT BARGAINING
Week 5 of bargaining is complete! The Committee spent three days in YYC, and we return on Tuesday for another four days. We continue to hear you and work actively on a strong, fair collective agreement. We’ve been bargaining the issues in the workplace that are important to you and encourage you to reach out to us if you have questions or suggestions.
OVERTIME AND OPERATIONALLY REQUIRED STAYS
In collaboration with WestJet, your Bargaining Committee has worked diligently over this past week to discuss the recent IROPs that occurred in YVR and YYC and how processes and communication can be improved. In August, Unifor influenced the Company to return to the pre-covid process of offering P1 shifts. In addition, WestJet agreed to pay overtime for any time an employee who stays beyond their regularly scheduled shift; a process that we have never seen before in Airports. This is your Union already at work for our members!
A Q&A was sent to all employees when the agreement rolled out, but we have found most recently that our members have more questions. Soon you will receive a joint communication in your WestJet email from both Unifor and WestJet. Additional information has been added to the initial Q&A and we hope this addresses any outstanding questions you may have. This joint communication was agreed upon, outside of the bargaining table and may change once we ratify our first collective agreement. If you have any questions about the email release, please reach out to any one of the Bargaining Committee members.
In last weeks communication, we said that if Unifor comes to an agreement with the Company outside of bargaining, you would receive an official communication from us on Unifor letterhead. As you will be receiving this joint communication in your WestJet email boxes, we will not be sending out another communication to your personal emails on Unifor letterhead.
DECEMBER SCHEDULE RELEASE
The December schedule release has been a hot topic of conversation this week and we wanted to clear a few things up. The intent of having two separate CSA bid schedules was to reduce the number of shift adjustments from bid awarding, prior to schedule release. This was discussed with us outside of bargaining. Last month, we saw a lot of this due to new members not being gate trained and subsequently unable to work certain shift times. From your feedback of the December schedule, we continue to have open conversations with the scheduling team on how we can improve this temporary situation until all employees are fully qualified and signed off on gating. It is also important to note that we stand by WestJet’s Code of Conduct and remind everyone we were all new at once. This is an incredibly challenging time to be joining our team, please support one another in a positive way.
Together We Fly
Local 531 Bargaining Committee
As always, if you need support in the workplace or have any questions for us, here’s how you can reach us:
YVR
Mark Enns
778.552.2344
[email protected]
Karen Berry
705.828.7795
[email protected]
Breanne Laihow
778.887.6156
[email protected]
YYC
Sherwin Antonio
403.660.7154
[email protected]
Sandeep Samrai
403.608.9392
[email protected]
Jamie Mote
403.606.0464
[email protected]
Lindsay Landry
403.850.4748
[email protected]
If you have friends that work at YYZ and YEG who have not yet signed a Unifor membership card, let them know that they can do this at join.unifor.org/federalcard
Do you like this page?