2023-05-06
Thank you for your support, solidarity, and unity. It was clear that we were at the table representing you, with all of you behind us. It has taken a long time and a lot of hard work for us to get to this point and we are proud of where we are today. We unanimously support this tentative agreement, and we unanimously recommend you ratify it.
It’s fair to say that we did not get everything we wanted; however, we truly believe that this historic, first collective agreement provides a solid starting point to improve our overall working conditions. It gets us to a place where we can breathe again and includes commitments from us and the employer to continue working collaboratively to improve our workplaces throughout the life of this agreement and future rounds of negotiations. We firmly believe that this is the best we can achieve this round and there was absolutely nothing left on the table by either side.
We recognize there are going to be more questions than answers right now. If you have general questions about the agreement, please send them to ta@cupe104.ca . Rather than responding to individual questions, we will use them to inform question and answer communications and our presentations at town halls. We need to focus on planning these communications and town halls to make sure we can ratify this agreement quickly.
There are very tight deadlines to get this agreement signed off and ensure it can be implemented with the necessary TB approvals before the House of Commons rises for the summer. You will receive a copy of the full tentative agreement as soon as it is ready, this is already in progress, and we will email and post all communications and Q&As on our website. Please remember that we are the only authoritative source for information on this tentative agreement and we will not be weighing in or answering specific questions on social media.
The retroactive payments due as a result of the 2.3% decision are included in the retroactive payments due as a result of signing this collective agreement. This is required in order to reduce the timeline needed to implement the pay provisions of this collective agreement. Retroactive payments where there is no manual intervention required will be paid within 180 days of signing the collective agreement. The employer is confident they will meet this deadline and we negotiated a recourse provision to ensure they do.
HIGHLIGHTS
Nine (9) year agreement expiring on December 31, 2025.
- April 1, 2016 2.3%
- January 1, 2017 2.25% (1.25% + 1%)
- January 1, 2018 1.25%
- January 1, 2019 2.8%
- January 1, 2020 2.2%
- January 1, 2021 1.5%
- January 1, 2022 1.5%
- January 1, 2023 4.75% (3.5% + 1.25%)
- October 5, 2023 4% (restructure, extra step)
- January 1, 2024 3.5% (3% + 0.5%)
- January 1, 2025 2.25% (2% + 0.25%)
- Approximately $40k in retroactive salary payments for members who were at the max pay level throughout.
- 32.26% compounding wage increases through 2025.
- A one-time, lump-sum payment of $2,500 to active members on the date of signing this collective agreement.
- Top salary for level 02, max step will be $83k on October 5, 2023.
- Top salary for level 03, max step will be $90k on October 5, 2023.
- Most terms and conditions are harmonized between PSE and CM members including various leaves with and without pay.
- 37.5 hour work weeks for all members.
- Overtime rate of 1.75 for all variable shift workers.
- Shift premium and weekend premium for all members, including overtime hours.
- Language allowance of $3 per hour for all IMA members while translating, transcribing, or reviewing in a language other than French or English.
- Sick leave, injury on duty leave, and disability management will remain status quo due to legislative, regulatory, and insurance implications.
Annual service pay, that was only applicable to our CM members, will be replaced with a new maximum salary step (+4%) for all members. This includes a service pay elimination differential to ensure no member will make less when annual service pay ends.
Accrual of vacation leave and personal leave for all members will follow the timelines currently applicable to our PSE members. All members will be entitled to 15 hours of personal leave every year. All members will transition to maximum carry-over of 262.5 hours. We negotiated the following transition measures for CMs to ensure there are no losses during the conversion.
- One time, 40 hour allotment of vacation leave that is not subject to carryover limits.
- One time, 37.5 hour entitlement after 2 years of service (PSE have received this already).
- Current entitlement to vacation leave credits will be maintained until the next threshold on the collective agreement.
- No prorated conversion of existing vacation leave credits as a result of the shift to a 37.5 hour work week.
We were able to maintain some RCMP specific entitlements for our CM members:
- Relocation on retirement
- Funeral and burial
- Work force adjustment
- Fitness / physical activity
We negotiated an independent, industry specific compensation study for our groups. This has already begun, and the results are anticipated later this year. This includes a commitment from both parties to collaborate on recruitment and retention issues and assess any additional steps that could be taken to help recruitment and retention.
NEXT STEPS
We are preparing the complete document that will contain all articles in the tentative agreement. As soon as it is complete, we will share it with all members.
We are also planning a series of in-person and virtual town halls in the coming weeks to discuss the tentative agreement and answer questions. The vote for all members to ratify the tentative agreement will be held in the first part of June.
Again, we recognize there are going to be more questions than answers right now. If you have general questions about the tentative agreement, please send them to ta@cupe104.ca . We are working hard on Q&A documents and the full tentative agreement and we will share them as they are completed.
In Solidarity,
Your CUPE 104 Executive
Kathleen, Robbin, Myles, Robb, Cyrus, Marc-Étienne, Alex, Brandon, Randy and Ron.
Executive e-mail addresses: https://104.cupe.ca/contacts/
Main page: https://104.cupe.ca/
Membership Form: https://104.cupe.ca/membership/
