|
May 15, 2020
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
On May 14 @ 8:00 AM President Jay Grewal sent a message to all employees at MH in which she confirmed that she remained “open to exploring all options for achieving the $11 million workforce expense reduction” and that Hydro was “engaged in ongoing dialogue with all of the unions and associations to this end.”
She went on to state her personal preference for an “8% wage reduction over 4 months” for all employees, and justified her choice suggesting that this would “equitably impact all employees”. She followed this up with an invitation to Corporate Exempt and Professional Engineers “to discuss options with [their] supervisors”.
It’s unfortunate that President Grewal chose “MPower” as her communication vehicle for this messaging. At best, it should have only been targeted to those groups that have no collective agreement. Now, because of this communication choice, IBEW members feel intimidated and pressured into following suit with employees who haven’t made the kind of concessions that were required, in order for us to bargain our current IBEW collective agreement.
You need know that throughout all this time, IBEW has been 100% committed to serving you, our members, and your best interests. We’ve been seeking information from the Corporation on a number of fronts so that we can come up with possible and acceptable alternatives to staff layoffs.
To date, the following events have transpired:
- Premier Pallister has demanded that Hydro find $86.2 Million in cost saving measures before the end of August 2020.
- $63.2 Million in savings have been identified from operations (not labour).
- $23 Million has to come out of Labour.
- $12 Million has already been found through vacancy management and eliminating summer student hires for a year.
- $11 Million more must come out of the Current Labour Force.
- The corporation has suggested an 8% reduction in pay supposed to last 8 pay periods from May1-end of August.
When President Grewal’s 8% option was first proposed to bargaining units, it was without any context at all. We attempted to find out more about this possible option so that we might be able to see if it was worth pursuing. To that end, we asked Manitoba Hydro numerous questions which are listed below. As you can see, we were given no useful information about what an 8% reduction would involve.
QUESTIONS
- Was this specific request endorsed by the government?
- Can the corporation share the document stating the request of Manitoba Hydro?
- Not able or willing to share the information or request from government.
- Can the corporation share what it sent off or replied to government?
- Not able or willing to share the information or request from government.
- Can the corporation confirm that come the end of the August there would be a guarantee that the $11 Million cut from workers pocketbooks would end and not continue further for any reason?
- Could not guarantee that the austerity measures would come to a complete end.
- Would the corporation put a moratorium on Contracting out?
- The corporation was not willing to place a Moratorium on Contracting out.
- What reductions would result to all the various contracts that are currently in place?
- The corporation could not confirm any reductions.
- Given that senior management gave themselves 16–30 percent increases in 2016while most staff saw minimal increases, would the corporation consider deeper cuts for senior managers than lower salaried staff as the effect on front line staff will be more significant on their disposable income than executives earning 2-10 times their salaries.
- Not willing to entertain reductions that affect lower income earners differently than higher salaried employees.
- Would the government workshare options be accessible?
- It looked into work share program and said it would be to difficult and burdensome to look at for some form of relief and therefore would not be an accessible option.
IBEW 2034 feels strongly that any ideas tossed around without the answer to these and many other questions, are not bona fide alternatives. We can’t in good conscience ask members to consider accepting any option that hasn’t been carefully scrutinized. We need to know precisely all of the parameters surrounding any potential alternative that’s suggested. The stakes are too high!
Unfortunately, no alternatives that we’ve presented to the Corporation have been met with any interest, much less a positive response. Similarly, Hydro has not offered any detailed suggestions for alternatives to layoffs. Although it has brought up a) an across the board reduction, b) voluntary layoffs, and c) the federal Work-Share program, it has either not been able to or unwilling to provide any level of detail to these ideas, which would then give us something to discuss with our members.
We continue to engage the employer everyday on this important topic. We are also working in concert with our sister unions to maintain a united front. To date, progress has been terribly slow. However, if and when any developments occur, we’ll immediately share these with you. Hopefully our continued and combined efforts will land on some creative solutions that eliminate the need for Hydro to layoff staff. If we get to a point where there’s a choice of alternatives for IBEW members, be assured that a vote of the membership will determine the final outcome.
I hope this has helped you understand where we are at present in our efforts to negotiate some better alternatives to the proposed layoffs that have been announced. As you can imagine, our resources are stretched very thin at this point trying to keep up with the multiple meetings, proposals, letters, etc.,while at the same time giving our members the individual support and representation they need.
In order to keep you all in the loop regarding “layoffs”, we will be sending out an update on the current status of our efforts every Friday. If anything of significance breaks during the intervening days between updates, we will send out an additional mailing to you so that you can remain fully informed.
I wish you all a great long weekend, and hope that you can find in it, a little relief from the stress that we’re all feeling at this time.
In solidarity,
|
