GENERAL TEAMSTERS, LOCAL UNION NO. 362
affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters
As many of you already know, BURNCO Rock Products Ltd. locked their Edmonton based employees out at 11:00 p.m. Monday, March 31, 2003. The brothers and sisters employed at the Edmonton location, chose to merge their Employee Association with the Teamsters, and on August 1, 2001 the Alberta Labour Relations Board issued its Declaration D2001-6 stating that Local 362 is the successor to the BURNCO (Northern Alberta) Employees Association. The Employee Association collective agreement ran until its expiry, at which time we asked the company to meet to negotiate an agreement covering those employees in Edmonton. The Company argued that the letter to open the agreement had not been received by them, and therefore they would not bargain on that agreement. After a time consuming and expensive process in which the ALRB ruled that there was evidence that there could be some doubt as to their receipt of the opening letter, the ALRB further ruled that the two parties (Company and Union) should sit down and bargain in good faith. After two days of bargaining, the company made an application for Mediation. A government appointed mediator sat with the Parties in an attempt to reach a settlement, however none was reached. The employees voted on, and rejected, the company's last offer. The company then locked its employees out. They have transferred much of the work to the Leduc plant which is non-union, and are using management employees to perform the work. The Union is asking that BURNCO Rock Products provide benefits and wages comparable to the other Unionized concrete companies working in the Edmonton area. Brothers Keith Norris and Rick Eichel have been attempting to meet with the Company for further negotiations. On Arpil 10, Brother Eichel was in Edmonton and had a meeting with the Company at that time. The largest majority of the Edmonton employees have been faithfully walking the picket line for the past week and a half, and will continue to do so until an agreement is reached, and the lockout lifted. We have some pictures for you of the Union picketers. We ask that you support these brothers and sisters in their attempts to gain a fair contract.
Brother Porter is currently in Los Angeles meeting with various studios and producers in an attempt to gain more motion picture business for Alberta. He is attending meetings along with representatives of ACTRA, IATSE, The Directors Guild of Canada and other Unions with movie members from Western Canada. This is a yearly excursion and Brother Porter has appointments with Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Pictures and Television while he is there. With the numbers of qualified members we have, and the state of the Canadian dollar, to say nothing of our beautiful scenery, we are optomistic that the motion picture division will again have a busy summer.
A shop steward seminar was held on the weekend of April 12/13. Business Agents chose those Stewards which they felt would benefit most from the seminar. They were both well attended, and from the comment cards the stewards completed, it would appear that the information provided will be of help to them in performing their responsibilities as Shop Stewards. We believe that these seminars are the best teaching tool we have for our stewards, and hope to be able to continue to provide them.
Several agreements are open for negotiation at this time, most notably the Construction agreement. Proposals have been exchanged and negotiations will begin early in May. Brothers Porter and Pearce have been negotiating with Grimshaw Trucking on a new agreement for their freight members. Brother Atkins is negotiating with Fort McKay Trucking and has applied for the assistance of a mediator in that matter.
Brother Wallace and Sister Michelle Henderson (Air Canada Jazz) recently attended the IBT Women's Conference in Baltimore Maryland. I had hoped to have some pictures of that for you. I guess it will have to wait till next time.
I am off to a course tomorrow, which SHOULD teach me how to get pictures web-ready and so if all goes well, I won't have to wait for our computer guru (Mike) to get them on for me. Pretty soon I'll have no excuse for not getting this done more often! Perhaps that's the method behind the madness for sending me to school!!
Enjoy the spring weather and remember to keep your brothers and sisters at BURNCO Rock Products Edmonton in mind. They need to know you stand behind them.