UNBC Support Workers Support Strike Action
Wednesday, July 4, 2012 @ 10:24 AM
Prince George, B.C.- CUPE 3799 support workers at the University of Northern B.C, have voted 91% in favour of strike action.
Seventy five percent of the 300 support workers at UNBC cast ballots last week.
Local 3799 president Caroline Sewell called the vote result "a strong message to the provincial government that chronic underfunding of post secondary education must stop. Our members have taken the brunt of the province’s financial mismanagement – now we want a fair and reasonable contract and are prepared to do what it takes to get it."
The strike result doesn’t mean the support workers will automatically hit the picket lines, rather, they have given their executive the option to call for a strike if contract talks fail.
The workers are looking for a four year deal that will offer a wage increase and job security.
The next round of negotiations is set for September.
Comments
We demand job security, we will do whatever we have to do to get it.
I say fire them all.
No one deserves job security; especially when they’re sucking on the taxpayer’s teat. If you want job security make yourself indispensable.
What faxman said.
When teachers start earning their (much more than most real working EMPLOYEES make!)pay I will feel for them! Welcome to the real world!!
Miss G@The people in question are not teachers. UNBC faculty are represented by the Faculty Association. The people CUPE represents are support staff, such as janitors, maintenance people, secretaries, clerks, security guards, grounds keepers, and power plant personnel.
So do you critics earn minimum wage, no benefits, no nothing? Is that what you want. Hey check the faculty incomes, not bad.
Check out what B.C. bureaucrats get paid, and see what kind of pay raises they have enjoyed in the last 3 or 4 years;
http://northerninsights.blogspot.ca/2012/03/adventures-in-not-net-zero-land.html
Sorry, don’t know how to make that a link
Now, if these high level deputy ministers etc. can be paid huge salaries and enjoy very hefty pay increases, why not allow “ordinary people” a decent pay raise?
That should be the issue we all unite against.
metalman.
Making it a link is easy metalman, the instructions are at the bottom under the post comment button.
Faculty contract is up too. They settled last time for no increase I doubt they will do the same this round.
“So do you critics earn minimum wage, no benefits, no nothing? Is that what you want. Hey check the faculty incomes, not bad.”
I don’t see anyone advocating minimum wage and no benefits for the support staff. Can you please point it out to me? Thanks.
Please do not get support staff mixed up with faculty.
Does anyone know what the lower and upper ranges of support staff are? How about median income?
I mean, people are complaining on here about those workers not being happy with an offer given, when we have no clue about those details. An increase in pay and job security …. so this is unusual in a negotiation between employer and employee, whether union or management?
Maybe someone, anyone, can enlighten us so that we can have a meaningful conversation instead of the normal bickering of anti-union and pro-union posters. It would be sort of refreshing, but so not like an internet blog.
Check the faculty incomes? ….. Hey, most of them have a PhD, many with Post Docs.
Apples ….. Oranges
Faxman … “If you want job security make yourself indispensable”
There is not a single person in this world who cannot be replaced, including you and me and everyone on this blog.
Everyone has some level of job security even if it is as simple as through the laws of the land which deal with such things as notice required, dismissal without cause, layoff notice, discrimination, etc. etc.
We all know that the world has changed over the last few decades which has put government organizations ahead of many of the larger corporations from the point of view of job security.
Universities in particular are institutions which have been around much longer than most corporations, as have cities, provincial governments, etc. etc.
What we must guard against is that letting someone go in those institutions remains a possibility when a fair assessment is made of a person’s ability to perform their job duties to a level required by the organization so that the organization can excel. That is where I have most often seen a failure in the system. When seniority trumps capacity and demonstrated job excellence, the system is ready to wither away into mediocrity.
gus: “I mean, people are complaining on here about those workers not being happy with an offer given, when we have no clue about those details.”
Well, this is speculation250, isn’t it? When the details aren’t given, people tend to fill them in. I’m not saying it’s right, but that’s just what happens.
gus: “Maybe someone, anyone, can enlighten us so that we can have a meaningful conversation instead of the normal bickering of anti-union and pro-union posters.”
Are you new here? ;-)
Did someone working at our University tell me that they and their families can attend university for free? (Is this another perk that isn’t in the contract?)
Family members can only take an empty seat.
Looking at the most recent collective agreement, it appears that the wage range is from $29,683 (Grade 1) to $71,154 (Grade 15)
Grade 1 would be a Parking Assistant
Grade 2 would be a Library Assistant in Circulations or Bookstore Clerk.
Grade 12 would include a Counselor or Green House Technician.
Grade 12A would be a Maintenance & Project Supervisor at $69,187 – $71,326.
Grade 14 would be the Learning Skills CT Coordinator at $66,192 to $68,239.
FYI
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