February 2004

Greetings:

IVP Phil Flemming

The IBEW has been very active across the country since the New Year and that has given me an opportunity to meet and discuss many issues with the IBEW Leadership West, Central, and East in all sectors of our Union. Thank you for your input and constructive suggestions for a more progressive IBEW in the 1st District. I will continue to attend these important meetings in order to keep my finger on the pulse of activities in Canada.

Our IBEW 1st District Staff continues to be very busy and as you will read in this addition of “Coast to Coast” the much requested “COMET Train the Trainer” courses are in progress across the country. We have positive feedback already on the course quality. If you have missed the course in your area we have three courses remaining that you may have access to. The dates and locations are as published in the January “Coast to Coast”.

We are getting close to having enough local union participation in the Construction Organizing CD-ROM/DVD. We are targeting a spring start date for the production phase and we are urging full involvement of all Inside and Outside 1st District Local Unions. If you have not already committed please make this a priority.

The Canadian Building Trades have scheduled the Annual Legislative Conference for September 20 and 21 in Ottawa. The two day Conference includes lobbying Members of Parliament on current issues affecting workers. As the issues will be common to every sector of the IBEW all Local Unions are encouraged to participate. We will forward the information as it becomes available.

In solidarity,
Phil Flemming,
International Vice President

COMET TRAIN THE TRAINER COURSES ARE ON-GOING

On February 10th to the 13th, 2004, 16 participants from Locals 213, 230, 586, 993, 1003 and 1574 attended the COMET Train the Trainer in Victoria, instructed by International Representatives Vair Clendenning and Larry Schell.

The school lived up to its reputation and clearly reached the objective of turning the class into believers in the IBEW organizing program and educating members to embrace organizing to reach a higher market share. Market share is a powerful bargaining tool in the determination of the rate of pay for IBEW members.

The class was made up of Business Managers, Organizers, Executive Board Members and some new members who became committed to instructing COMET to their local union members.

From the west coast, congratulations to Locals 230 and 1003 for hiring organizers. Local 230 has taken on Dave Thompson who comes with great experience in organizing, and Local 1003’s new organizer is Ray Keen. Ray comes with lots of enthusiasm and his background will assist him in increasing market share for Local 1003.

As reported earlier, as part of our Winter School Program, on February 16th to the 19th, 22 prospective Comet instructors from Locals 105, 115, 353, 804, 894, 1687, and 1739 attended the Comet Train the Trainer course held in Toronto facilitated by International Representatives Mike Power, Chuck McKenzie and Tom Reid.

Those in attendance were instructed on various aspects of teaching adult learners and the unique challenges it presents. Topics included effective communication styles, recognizing various personality types and different teaching methods. In addition to the “How to Train” portion of the program, participants received a demonstration of the Comet course with up to date regional data and statistics.

Following the presentation of the Comet Program, participants were assigned to demonstrate what they had learned by delivering portions of the Comet course and were then evaluated on their performance. The Comet program is a very necessary and extremely important part of our continuing organizing efforts.

Thank you to the participants for enthusiastically accepting the challenge to deliver this program to our rank and file members, and thank you to the leaders of the Locals for accepting the challenge and moving our Brotherhood forward.

For those who want to become Trainers in the Eastern Region, a full class has registered for Comet Train the Trainer, which is scheduled in Halifax from March 1st to the 4th.

NEGOTIATIONS

In Local 1620, the members have recently voted on tentative agreements reached with Newfoundland Power. The result of the clerical vote is a 90% turnout and the agreement was accepted by the membership. The result of the craft vote is an 84% turnout and the proposed Craft Agreement was rejected. The Local has applied for conciliation and talks are scheduled to resume in an attempt to get a craft agreement also.

With the 13 Ontario Construction Locals, negotiations have been on-going in recent weeks and will conclude in the very near future.

The key to the negotiating process is an agreement by Labour and Management to use “Mutual Gains Bargaining” and, if required, utilize the “Final Offer Selection Process” if and when the parties fail to reach an agreement at the negotiating table. Prior to the inception of this process in 1992, there were four strikes in five rounds of bargaining and since adopting this format, work stoppages have been eliminated.

The core of the final offer selection process is to:

• Ratify the collective agreement without resorting to a work stoppage
• To allow the parties to begin bargaining early, thereby eliminating the influence of pattern building trade settlements on monetary issues.
• To protect the member’s interests if other monetary settlements are higher, by using a me-too clause.

After all the other construction trades have settled, the Electrical Trade Joint Board reviews the IBEW monetary settlement in comparison to the other trades, and in the event the IBEW package is lower, the deal is adjusted upward to the average of the two highest Ontario settlements. Presently, the parties are fast approaching the monetary portion of negotiations and both sides are optimistic an agreement can be reached without resorting to use of the selector.

Note: Since this article was submitted to the First District Office, we have learned that at 4:30 a.m. on Feb. 28, 2004, an agreement was reached with the IBEW Construction Council of Ontario and the Electrical Contractors Association of Ontario, without having to go to Final Offer Selection. A deal was made at the table, which will provide an increase of $3.40 per hour over the duration of the 3-year agreement. Further details will be provided in the March Coast to Coast.

ANNUAL WESTERN UTILITY, TELEPHONE AND CABLE CONFERENCE

More than 40 delegates from Central and Western Canada recently convened in Victoria for the Annual IBEW Western Canada Utility, Telephone and Cable conference. The Conference, spanning February 17th - 20th covered a myriad of topics relevant to the challenges currently faced by IBEW Utility Locals within their respective industries and regions.

Immediately preceding the Conference, a one day meeting of WCUC delegates took place, aimed at continuing the creation of a National Benefit Plan for IBEW Utility Locals across Canada. This process will continue to evolve as the newly elected trustees begin their duties.

The First District wishes to thank Brothers Gerald Larson and John Briegel for the tremendous effort they put into ensuring the WCUC was once again an excellent, successful and well-run event.

IN DEFENCE OF THE DEFINED BENEFIT PENSION PLAN

In recent Coast to Coast articles there has been criticism of the Defined Benefit Pension Plan, and there has also been defense and praise for this type of pension, as it is deemed to be better for our members than Defined Contribution. At the recent IBEW-NECA Benefits Conference, International Secretary -Treasurer Jerry O’Connor emphasized once again, as he has in the past, that the IBEW prefers to see Defined Benefit Pension rather than Defined Contribution in the Locals for the betterment of our members.

In the February 2004 edition of the Canadian HR Reporter, there is a great article titled “Defined benefit plans are not dead in Canada, nor should they be put to pasture”. The author suggests that there is no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water, but keep what is good about the current defined benefit plans and fix what is not good. Plan sponsors must not be driven by short-term cyclical phenomena and must resist the urge to be reactive and instead be proactive, with respect to the Canadian pension system.