Greetings:

The Bargaining Committee has been working with the Employer in order to get the new Collective Agreement out as quickly as possible.  Unfortunately, we have come to a disagreement with the Employer on changes that the Union believed were going to be made to the pension language in Article 19.04 when we signed off on the Pension MOA in September 2018.

The Employer’s position is that we did not bargain this language in the MOA, therefore, it cannot be changed in the Collective Agreement  As such, the language that will be in the Collective Agreement regarding the bridge benefit will still reference the 15 years instead of the 10 years, which contradicts the plan text of the pension plan. 

The Bargaining Committee has tried on several occasions to have this corrected but have been unsuccessful.  This is the reason we have not signed the Collective Agreement to date as we want to provide an accurate Collective Agreement to our members. 

As such, we are providing the draft copy of the Collective Agreement for ease of reference until a mutual agreement can be made with the Employer.  We will continue to update members on the progress. 

Please note that even though it has not been signed, all provisions of the Collective Agreement are in place and members are covered as per the signed Memorandum of Agreement. 

In solidarity,

COPE491 Bargaining Committee