Union in ‘very public dispute’ with members

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/10/2002 (8622 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One of Manitoba’s biggest unions will be publicly fighting one of its own locals after mediation attempts failed in a dispute over what hundreds of hospital workers claim was a botched contract vote at the Health Sciences Centre.

Close to 800 support staff at the HSC want a contract their local ratified last month tossed out, and a new vote held on the deal.

The Manitoba Labour Board now must decide “in this very public dispute” whether regional officers of the Canadian Union of Public Employees dealt fairly with members of one of their locals, the 2,200 members of CUPE 1550 at the HSC, lawyer Dean Kropp said yesterday.

Kropp said it was hoped a deal could have been worked out Friday behind closed doors. Talks failed and now unionists “who ought to be on the same side” will be battling it out in a court setting.

The CUPE workers’ petition to the labour board says workers didn’t have enough time to review and discuss the offer before they voted. The final tally showed 63 per cent of the 1,200 who voted were in favour of ratifying the deal.

CUPE president Paul Moist, who may find himself testifying at the hearing, has said the vote was fair.

But Kropp said evidence will show the vote was conducted in an “unprecedented” manner that allowed workers just one day to make up their minds on the proposed deal.

And Kropp said he’ll call witnesses who will tell the board they were not aware of the vote, and had received no details on it.

He said “there was no time at all” between information meetings for workers and the vote — it happened the same day.

As well, he said the executive of Local 1550 was told “not to make any comments” on the offer.

“The local executive was silent,” Kropp said, adding that is “completely unprecedented.” Those who opposed the contract “were told to keep their mouths shut.”

“Why the rush (to conduct the vote)? I suppose we’ll get into that further into the hearings.”

Kropp also said the hearing may learn why Moist was in the voting room “advocating in favour of the deal.”

“This is not his local.”

Moist refused to comment last night on the issues before the board. “I don’t talk to a struck employer,” he said, referring to a strike that began last Wednesday at the Free Press.

Kropp said the hearing before the board, initially set for two days last week, will continue Oct. 21, 30 and 31.

Besides the embarrassment for CUPE, there are signs the dispute may become a political issue. Opposition Leader Stuart Murray has called on Premier Gary Doer to support workers who want a revote

Murray pointed to Doer’s call for a revote by Motor Coach Industries workers earlier this year in a bid to keep the plant in Winnipeg. The union finally agreed, and MCI workers who earlier had rejected a contract voted the second time to accept.

Murray said “Doer should be standing up for health-care workers and asking for a re-vote. Why the double standard?”

Just days after CUPE’s alleged hasty HSC vote, striking support staff at St. Boniface General Hospital, represented by a different union, okayed a better deal that will give them at least a 7.6 per cent wage hike over two years.

The St. Boniface workers, represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, voted 93 per cent in favour of a deal that will see the union and hospital meet with an arbitrator to hammer out lingering issues.

That includes the amount and timing of the wage hike, since both sides only agreed to use the 7.6 per cent increase — the same raise given to other health workers in contracts negotiated last month — as a base from which to start.

Beyond the reach of the arbitrator, the deal also gives St. B workers a $1-million fund that will be used over five years to bring wages more in line with other local hospitals.

And, they earned better premium pay. Full-time night shift workers could see as much as a 15-per-cent wage hike, or $1.05 per hour, said United Food and Commercial Workers union local president Robert Ziegler.