This week saw the last meeting of this elected MERC team. Brother Almeida sent his regrets as he was attending the Executive Board meeting in Toronto. This MERC meeting was held in Brockville with Local 440 executive in attendance. Our agenda was again full starting at about ten in the morning and ending around five thirty that afternoon.
This was the last meeting for the members who were present representing the union before elections at divisional in November. It was also the first meeting for the employers co-chair. In the past two years we have seen the employer play musical chairs with four management co-chairs on their side of the table. This lack of commitment has not swayed us in our determination to press forward on our issues. We have I feel accomplished a lot at the MERC level with many new agreements and initiatives over the last two years. Of course there is still much more that needs to be addressed to make our work places better.
We continue to struggle with getting the employer to sign off on the MERC minutes and to have them posted both in a timely manner. We inherited a practice of past MERC teams that had a different point of view on getting the minutes out in a timely fashion. We have improved the process somewhat, but not to the teams satisfaction. The resistance to change has been found to be on both sides of the table. When changes are made people often take time to become comfortable with them. Hopefully these minutes will be signed off before November which would be a record!
In Solidarity
Dan Sidsworth
