September 20, 2018
TO: ALL BTS LOCALS AND NATIONAL REPRESENTATIVES
Sisters and Brothers,
Re: BTS BULLETIN
We are writing this memo to the membership but more specifically the RFT employees at Bell Technical Solutions, in an effort to address the email sent on Monday, September 17th, 2018 to BTS employees around the province of Ontario by the company.
As you can imagine we were surprised that the company would state in their letter that “the concept of guaranteed days of rest was not negotiated for during the last round of bargaining”. The members of the bargaining committee have met with the employer several times since May 6th, 2018 to try and resolve the issues regarding the interpretation of the language and the various changes that were in fact, negotiated in the last round of bargaining that the company signed off on in February of 2018 – including a meeting that took place over 3 days in Toronto with the company President Jean Philippe Paradis and Director of HR for BTS Mireille Bergeron from August 7th to the 10th, 2018.
The purpose of this meeting was like prior meetings, to try and come to a resolution regarding the dispute between the parties on the intent and interpretation of the negotiated changes to the consecutive days of rest language. The company had also attempted to resolve the issue, by presenting the union with a Memorandum of Agreement where they would agree to the consecutive days for RFT1, and RFT2 employees but not for RFT3 employees. Along with other changes that would negatively impact the RPT employees in our opinion. The committee rejected the Memorandum of Agreement and we were unable to get the employer to agree to any resolution.
It is one thing for the employer to say that they do not agree with the Union’s interpretation of what was negotiated. It is something, altogether different, for the employer to deny it was bargained at all.