Jan 9, 2024

Dear Member

I would like to inform you about some important recent developments from Jan 4th, where the IBEW bargaining committee received a financial mandate from Manitoba Hydro. In response to receiving the mandate:

• The IBEW negotiation committee responded the afternoon of the 4th with a counteroffer that Manitoba Hydro took back to their principles. The counteroffer was designed to propose a complete settlement of  the current round for 2024-2026, the outstanding unsettled issue of GWI’s for 2022 & 2023 plus mileage rates.

• On Friday Jan 5th @ 11:00 AM the IBEW bargaining committee received an updated offer from Manitoba Hydro stating it was their best offer.  The corporation suggested utilizing Adrian Frost January 8-10, 2024 for the purpose of finalizing a Memorandum of Settlement capturing the items. IBEW’s committee responded that there would be no purpose in utilizing a mediator to finalize a MOA as the offer was characterized as their best offer and the parties were simply too far apart.

• On Monday Jan 8th, we received another request by the corporation to meet.  That afternoon, the parties met to review and discuss a revised offer.  In this offer, the corporation was compelled to entertain the option to settle 2022 and 2023 as well as the mileage issue scheduled for the upcoming arbitration.  Settling the 2022 & 2023 GWI’s at the bargaining table rather than upcoming arbitration is the preferred course of action. The bargaining committee discussed and carefully analyzed the offer over the evening.  Although the offer was an improvement, it was conditional upon recommendation by IBEW bargaining committee.  Unfortunately, it is not an offer we can recommend to the membership for approval.  

• This morning, Jan 9th IBEW responded with an offer for the corporation to consider that would settle all outstanding items, including arbitration. With these proposed  amendments, the committee is prepared to fully endorse the offer to the membership for acceptance. We can share that over the next couple of days we will be in a position to present an offer to the membership for approval/ratification.  Whether we can make a recommendation to the membership for approval remains to be determined.

We will be initiating our vote on Thursday, January 11th, which will be concluded on Monday, January 15th at 1:00 PM.  The vote will include the offer from Manitoba Hydro (the most current and updated version).  The vote will be to either accept or reject the offer that is presented.  The Vote to reject will contain the minimum threshold for any future offers to be taken to the membership.  This will avoid the corporation's tactics of multiple final offers designed to create voter fatigue throughout the membership.

We will be hosting update meetings via teams with the UNIT Chairs in their locations on both Thursday, Jan 11th and Friday, Jan 12th to update members on the Corporation's offer and the next steps.  

The process is fluid and updating continuously. Thank you for your patience and support

Sincerely,

Business Manager
IBEW Local Union 2034