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05/07/2016
At the previous CIF meeting in February, the Council and Company made a decision to work toward an intermediary non-monetary Collective Agreement (CA) package. The Bell communication of March 29 regarding the “alignment of the Bell Aliant pension plans with the Bell plans” generated a large amount of questions and concerns from the union membership. The provisions of the Bell Aliant unionized pension plans are in place until the expiration of the current CA and will be part of the package for negotiations in the next collective agreement. The Council expressed its concern to the Company that any type of minor changes in an intermediary CA package would be overshadowed by the recent Bell pension message. For this reason, the Council and Company agreed that the future CIF meeting schedule would primarily focus on negotiating a new collective agreement prior to the expiration of our current CA at the end of 2017.
The Council will be sending out a communication later this month asking for collective agreement proposals in preparation for the next CIF meeting in September.
At the April CIF meeting, the Company provided a summary of their planned changes to the Bell Aliant pension plans for the management staff. That information has been referred back to the Unifor Benefits and Legal departments for review and comparison to the other Bell company pension plans.
The job evaluation (JE) and SELQ sub-committees also provided updates on their progress. The JE committee has determined that the Hay methodology will be the process used and is now working on the committee make-up and procedural format. The SELQ committee is currently working on a comparison of the Bell and Bell Aliant job posting processes for review.
It was also announced that the Unifor National representative, Rick Rose, is retiring and the new National rep will be in place for the next CIF meeting in September. The Company informed the Council that Jennifer Palov, Director, Human Resources, Bell Canada, will be replaced by Stephen Desgagne, Director, Labor Relations, and BCE. Also Barney Dobbin, Regional Director, Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services (FMCS), is changing assignments and will be replaced by Neil McNeil.
In Solidarity
Unifor ACL Council