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Yukon Employees’ Union 2285-2nd Ave. Whitehorse, Yukon Y1A 1C9
Yukon Employees’ Union
August 2017
Who
NEWS
#millennials - are the kids all right?
are the Millennials? A millennial is anyone born between the early 80’s and the late 90’s – they are a pretty large cohort. Basically, if they’re younger than YOU, they’re millennials. If they’re annoying you, they’re millennials. If you don’t like a style, a trend or a new reality, blame that demographic. Everybody’s doing it. According to the press, they’ve killed the serviette industry and Sears. Really.
Millennials catch hell for just about everything they do or don’t do, buy or choose not to buy. Millennials are scapegoated or mocked almost daily in the media as lazy, vain, celebrity crazed and still living with their parents at 30. In fact, they are a socially conscious, diverse and well educated generation, busy challenging the status quo and changing the world in some profound ways.
As workers in their early 20’s to late 30’s, millennials comprise an enormous chunk of the work force. Many struggle to find an entry point into steroid enhanced housing markets, while staggering under crushing student debt. Too many work in precarious and poorly paid jobs with few benefits, little security and no hope of a pension.
The stable union jobs that allowed their parents’ generation to thrive have all but disappeared. The wages that allowed home ownership were the outcome of negotiated collective agreements, but who is talking to young people about unions? Organized labour has been so demonized by corporate interests that many union members feel little pride in their membership. As a result, they don’t talk with their kids about the very real advantages of union membership.
Some economists say millennials are the first generation who will find it difficult to achieve the financial stability their parents enjoyed. In fact, studies have shown that a university educated 30 year old today earns about the same as someone without a degree in 1989, in today’s dollars but of course, the cost of living has skyrocketed.
Few young workers have had much exposure to unions and the bargaining power unionization allows. With many millennials working as contractors, in internships or navigating the new “sharing economy”, the idea of collective bargaining seems out of reach. Without it, the salaries needed to raise a family, buy a home, and save for the future are unlikely.
Millennials starting families are faced with some hard choices. It’s almost impossible to afford daycare for more than one child, but few young families can afford to have one parent stay home - housing costs alone make that choice increasingly difficult. Young workers have some very compelling reasons to join a union and to support the ideals of the labour movement.
Union activism in young workers is in decline, so it’s up to the more seasoned union members to encourage them to look for unionized jobs. Talk to young workers - help them organize their places of work. The loss of good jobs won’t just affect millennials and their children, it will affect every Canadian.
Low wages mean a shrinking tax base, and an ever diminishing ability to fund the services and programs Canadians count on. Canada’s healthcare system will undoubtedly suffer without healthy incomes for this and future generations.
Let’s stop blaming millennials for the real world problems they have inherited. Let’s remember how important unions and union jobs are to communities and families. Let’s support young workers as they try to organize their places of work, and let’s encourage contract workers to find unions that connect and empower free-lance and sharing economy labourers.
Millennials are the first generation who will find it difficult to achieve the financial stability their parents enjoyed.
From the President’s Desk Steve Geick We’ve had a Convention Countdown ticking away on our website for over a year now. Suddenly we’re less than 100 days from our 8th Triennial Convention! Members of the YEU Executive are busy preparing reports and collating your resolutions while staff work on the details that make a convention possible. Nearly a hundred delegates have been selected by their co-workers to attend on their behalf. Delegates will receive convention training so they know what to expect and how to participate fully.
Education: YEU’s training program has seen renaissance over the last three years with the creation of a term Shop Steward Coordinator position. We’ve delivered excellent Shop Steward training to an ever expanding roster of Shop Stewards and the recently published YEU Shop Steward’s Handbook will ensure activists have a reliable and informative document to guide them.
“To support and improve the rights of Yukon workers through collective bargaining, education, representation, community involvement and public interest advocacy”
Community Involvement Our commitment to the communities where we live and work is ongoing, though you might not hear about it all. We maintain relationships with the Whitehorse Food Bank, Yukon Learn, Skills Yukon and the Yukon Women in Trades and Technologies, to name a few. Our annual Human Rights Speaker Series opens our doors to the public for several days each year and we help Local Y010 host a huge Labour Day barbeque in Shipyards Park, serving up lunch to over 1000 people.
These triennial events offer us an opportunity to look back at what we’ve accomplished over the three year term, and consider what we need to do in the years ahead. In this term, our management team relied on the mandate our members set out in 2014 and YEU’s own mission statement;
One thing we keep in mind when we lobby or criticize any government is that we’re using our members’ dues. Yukon Employees’ Union does not support or endorse any political party or politician. It’s important that our members know we are politically neutral and willing to go toe-to-toe against anyone in any elected role if we feel we must.
We use the power of collective bargaining and the grievance procedure when problems, inconsistencies or injustice must to be corrected. Sometimes we use our resources to keep an issue on the minds of the public and the decision makers. What have we been up to for the last three years?
Collective Bargaining: Kudos to experienced PSAC negotiators and formidable bargaining teams. Their efforts helped us achieve some amazing collective agreements that set the bar high and gained national recognition. Yukon contracts were among the first in the country to include ground breaking language on domestic violence and mental health in the workplace. We’ve maintained our no concession bargaining stance.- thanks to strong negotiations and determined bargaining teams, we didn’t lose ground in any collective agreements.
Representation: YEU now has three highly qualified, full-time Labour Relations Advisors on staff along with our Shop Steward Coordinator and Intake Officer. Thanks to the training available and the work of our staff and Local activists, we have seen real growth in our Shop Steward network. This growth in capacity means we are tackling issues in more workplaces than ever, and are able to resolve them quicker.
Public Interest Advocacy: We work hard for our members in Yukon but we also have an interest in the political landscape of the country. YEU directly lobbied our MP Bagnell, urging him to help stop Bill C-27 and to repeal anti-union legislation introduced by the last Government.
Closer to home, YEU volunteers established mobile stations at several community events to help voters make sure they were registered to vote in the last federal election. As we approach our Convention, we encourage you to read the YEU Newsletter, check out our blog and like us on Facebook. We have some really interesting initiatives coming up and as I always say, YEU is YOUR union… please get involved!
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Community Nurses......Still Waiting! LOU M: COMMUNITY NURSING
ONE NURSE HEALTH CENTRES PROJECT
This Letter of Understanding is established to create additional support positions in each of the communities of Beaver Creek and Destruction Bay. The purpose of creating these additional positions is to provide support during a period of increased activity during the summer months and reduce work alone hours. Summer relief positions will run May 1 to September 30 with one (1) additional PHCN in each of Beaver Creek and Destruction Bay. During the period of October 1 to April 30 one (1) additional PHCN will be shared equitably between each of Beaver Creek and Destruction Bay. This relief PHCN will be scheduled to work at minimum four (4) weeks in each community, for clarity a nurse would be scheduled at minimum four (4) weeks in Destruction Bay and then the next consecutive 4 weeks in Beaver Creek.
This scheduling supports coverage of at minimum every third weekend off for each community and provides flexibility of rapid deployment to the other community in times of workload surge or staff emergency leave.
All parties agree that the PHCN position is a hard to fill position and extensive training and mentoring is required for this position. The staffing action will commence immediately following ratification of the Collective Agreement and the project will run the life of the Collective Agreement. An evaluation of the project will be completed at minimum six (6) months prior to the end of the Collective Agreement. The evaluation will be conducted by an independent third party to review its effectiveness and impact on the workplace and may inform changes that may be required for the project. Community Nursing will make every reasonable attempt to fill this new position with Auxiliary-On-Call (AOC) PHCNs when vacant.
“The purpose of creating these additional positions is to provide support during a period of increased activity during the summer months and reduce work alone hours”
Yukon’s Department of Health & Social Services sent their spokesperson to do the rounds recently, defending the employer’s efforts to meet the obligations of Letter of Understanding M in the press. The document (printed at left) forms part of the current collective agreement, ratified in 2016.
YEU has serious concerns about the department’s efforts to fill the promised positions and about the ongoing use of hiring practices that are clearly not providing results.
According to a recent radio interview, YG has made “EVERY REASONABLE EFFORT” to fill these positions. YEU disagrees. Although it is true the employer has one active job posting (the only one we’ve seen this summer) for a Community Nurse, it is for a parttime Auxiliary on Call position with weekends off. How can one part time AOC nurse provide the coverage needed to ensure genuine respite, particularly if the weekends aren’t covered?
The employer has advised us that there will be limited relief offered over the remainder of the summer. With one relief worker coming on stream and nurses in two health community centres needing relief, there won’t be much time to go around.
Both the union and the nurses are glad for the relief that is coming, though it’s far from meeting the need or the intent of the Letter of Understanding. We’ll keep the pressure on to make sure next season is safer for nurses, communities & travelers. Sign our petition and we’ll make sure the Minister knows we care!
Visit bit.ly/IsupportNurses
Printed with artist’s permission. Originally published in the Yukon News
Who is at the Bargaining table? It’s another busy bargaining season at YEU. The professional negotiators from the PSAC are working closely with bargaining units across our membership. Their goal is always to achieve a good contract, a concession free collective agreement. That means they bargain with no intention of giving up any ground, or bargaining away any benefit already negotiated on behalf of the members.
We’ve signed off several new Collective Agreements recently, and we have quite a few units actively bargaining with a few more getting ready to select bargaining teams and get started.
If your workplace is heading to the bargaining table in the next while, it’s time to think about your Bargaining Input. Input from members determines the priorities for the team when they sit opposite the employer. If there’s something in your contract you think needs to change or something you think needs to be added, make sure you complete a Bargaining Input form in plenty of time. Provide it to the Yukon Employees’ Union office or to a member of your Local Executive or Bargaining Team well before negotiations begin.
The more signatures you can get from your colleagues in support of your proposal the better. That indicates strong support in the workplace, and lets the negotiator and bargaining team know it’s something you all want them to fight for.
The bargaining process, from input call to ratification, can take a long time. If your contract expires within the next 6-12 months you can be sure that behind the scenes, preparatory work is underway already.
So what’s happening? These Bargaining Units are getting ready for bargaining:
Many Rivers Counselling & Support Services Local Y031 Yukon Hospital Corporation - Local Y025 Help & Hope for Families, Watson Lake - Local Y038 Air North, YEU Local Y036 The following are in the midst of the negotiation process: Yukon Energy Corporation Local Y024 The City of Whitehorse Local Y023 Whitehorse Transit Local Y022
The following Locals have recently ratified their new Collective Agreements:
Town of Watson Lake Local Y029 City of Dawson Local Y043 Skookum Jim After Hours Support Workers Local Y044 Yukon College Y011 Nakwaye Ku Daycare Y014 Yukon Women’s Transition Centre Local Y012 Child Development Centre Local Y013
AND...
If you work for the Government of Yukon, your contract expires December 31, 2018. That means by this time a year from now, we’ll be looking for Bargaining input from you. Maybe it’s time for you to let us know what you’d like to see. It’s your contract - your union. We need your ideas, your input.
YEU 2017 Bursary Applications are now available at yeu.ca/yeu-bursaries
Each year, YEU offers 8 bursaries of $1000 to YEU members or their dependents attending full time studies at an accredited post-secondary institution. Have questions? Call our office at 667-2331 or 1-800-YEU-2331
PTSI Presumptive Legislation YWCHSB & Government of Yukon “This year, the Government of Yukon will amend the Workers’ Compensation Act to include a presumption clause for emergency response workers who are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Additionally, the government is considering making amendments to the Occupational Health and Safety Act that will foster mental health and wellness at work”
So read the Stakeholder Consultation invitation from the Yukon Workers’ Compensation Health & Safety Board. Presumptive Legislation recognizing *PTSI for workers likely to be exposed to trauma on a regular basis makes sense and Yukon Employees’ Union supports this positive move on the part of the Yukon government and the YWCHSB.
YEU prepared a submission on behalf of the component and we sent an email to members encouraging individual submissions before the June 30th deadline. We hope new legislation will make it easier for work-
ers to access the help they need without painful retraumatization and delay. We also hope the government includes language in the OH&S Act specific to the protection of mental health for all workers.
While we agree completely with the inclusion of first responders and emergency personnel in the presumptive legislation, there are many other fields of work where trauma occurs, and that many other workers are impacted. Hopefully this is only the beginning, and as understanding of PTSI matures, other fields will soon be added.
Emergency shelter workers, teachers, social workers, nurses, corrections officers and others experience trauma regularly. Individuals in pain should not be expected to relive that pain just to prove their eligibility for care or benefits. *PTSI: Post Traumatic Stress Injury is the designation preferred by many who work in the field of PTSI Prevention & Treatment.
Congratulations! Yukon Employees’ Union took part in the 2017 Yukon Trade Show. As always, we offered some great draw prizes. This year, we were happy to draw names for three $150 Superstore gift cards
The lucky winners were Eileen Boyle, Ellen Oppold and Naresh Prasad.
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YEU NEWS August 2017
Shop Steward Training Schedule
New Steward Info & Orientation Session Wed. Sept 6
Are you a new Shop Steward? Maybe you’re interested in becoming a Steward? Join this informative session; we’ll explain the role, talk about training, resources and the support YEU provides.
Wednesday August 23 Grievance Handling
The grievance procedure is the official, agreed-upon way to resolve conflicts in a unionized workplace. While it isn’t the right tool for every situation (when an issue can be resolved informally it is almost always better to do so), it is one that shop stewards should be confident using.
In this Round Table we will take a close look at the grievance procedure in your own collective agreement, practice assessing complaints to determine when there is a grievance to file, and examine some case studies to get familiar with the process from start to finish.
Wednesday September 20 Good Communication in Bad Situations
Shop Stewards sometimes find themselves in situations requiring careful communication skills; perhaps you need to explain to a member why you cannot file a grievance about their issue, but don’t want to be discouraging. Maybe a supervisor denies your request for union leave and you need to explain your rights as a union representative. Prepare for these situations in advance by practicing your communication skills with other shop stewards in this session.
Register at yeu.ca/get-training Curious about becoming a Shop Steward??
Please contact YEU Shop Steward Coordinator David Anderson at 667-2331 or send him an email at danderson@yeu.ca
Stewards do not lose pay to attend union training. Page 7
YEU NEWS August 2017
Meetings & Events
Y010 Monthly Meeting: 2nd Tues., 5:30-7:30 p.m., YEU Hall
YEU Monthly Exec Meeting: 2nd Thurs., 5:15 - 7pm, YEU
Y017 Monthly Meeting: 4th Thursday/month 7:15 p.m., YEU Hall
Shop Steward Round Table: Wed Aug. 23 9am - noon, YEU
Local Y010 AGM: Wednesday Aug 23, YEU Hall
Feed the People Bbq: Mon. Sept. 4, 11am-3 pm Shipyards Park
Local Y018 AGM: Thurs. August 3, Downtown Hotel
Staff
Christie Harper, Labour Relations Advisor; charper@yeu.ca Susan Koser, Labour Relations Advisor; skoser@yeu.ca
Dan Robinson, Labour Relations Advisor; drobinson@yeu.ca Beckie Huston, Intake Officer; bhuston@yeu.ca Tammy Olsen, Financial Officer; tolsen@yeu.ca
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(SSRT Topic: Grievance Handling)
David Anderson, Shop Steward Coordinator; danderson@yeu.ca
Roseanne Elias, Membership Svcs Assistant; relias@yeu.ca
Deborah Turner-Davis, Communications: dturner-davis@yeu.ca
Laura Hureau, Executive Director; lhureau@yeu.ca
Yukon Employees’ Union Office, 2285 2nd Avenue Whitehorse YT Y1A 1C9 PH: 867-667-2331 Fax: 867-667-6521 Toll Free: 1-888-YEU-2331 Email contact@yeu.ca Visit www.yeu.ca, follow us on Facebook & Twitter & visit our blog; www.theunionbillboard.com Office Hours: Monday through Friday, 8:30 am - 5:00 pm.
YEU NEWS August 2017