Local 9 Of The PPWC Inks A New Deal
Friday, August 10, 2012 @ 12:23 PM
Prince George, B.C. – Local 9 of the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada has approved a new contract.
Frank Robertson, 1st Vice President for BC says the workers voted 72% in favour of the new contract which covers 470 PPWC members working at the P.G. Pulp and Intercon mills.
Robertson says there were some local enhancements added into the local contract while the wage issue remained the same as other regions.
The workers voted to approve the new contract on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.
The five year deal gives the membership a lump sum payment of $3750 this year and next . In addition to the two years of lump sum payments, the agreement provides for a 2% wage hike in year three, a further 2.5% boost in year four, and 3% wage hike in year five.
Comments
Prince George retailers can breath a big sigh of relief, no possibility of a strike for at least 5 years!! Kudos to the PPWC negotiators for gaining enhancements to the previous offer that convinced the members to approve it!!
I believe it was the warning that there would be no strike pay, nor support from the other locals, that convinced the members to approve. Now the retailers just have to hope, as do the workers, that the pulp market stays up and the workers are not off for production curtailments. Great negotiating on the company’s side.
You make it sound like they were strong armed into voting in favour? Obviously it was the ‘enhancements’ that provided the incentive to vote to accept the offer!! It was the only real change.
One enhancement was to increase the gym membership up to $75 and an additional $15,000 additional to the local education fund !! This makes the PPWC agreement measurably superior to the one agreed to earlier by the CEP. It took a little effort but the info is available.
Increase the Gym Membership to $75? Does this cover spa services too?
They can only strike on bull session not main wage talk if they had gone on strike over main wage they would of been on their own with no support for strike pay but bull sessions they would get strike pay
No way Dearth, they don’t vote on bull sessions separately anymore…that is old school! So there is no way they can strike on local issues. One thing about the PPWC is they are democratically operated, so there is no business agent to tell them how to vote!
Know anyone else who will get $7500.00 cash, and a 7.5% increase in the next five years??
I guess the Government workers, City Hall types, Teachers, etc; can now state they want the same contract.
During the same period people on fixed incomes, and those without Unions will get diddly squat, however their costs will remain the same as the **big boys**
Maybe more people should organize at their work places. I’m sure one of the “Unions” will be glad to have additional members and help negotiate better wages and working conditions. OH, that would mean doing something other than whining about what others have.
The pulp mills will be hiring about 100 people a year over the next 5 years. Y’all can be jealous or increase your skill set and/or resign yourself to shift work in hostile conditions with shortened life span in an effort that your children have a better go of it, to participate in the profits…….they ain’t free.
Well said Whelen!
More likely the pulp mills will shut down one mill in the next five years, what with the shortage of fibre, and the projected lousy prices for pulp.
Nice to have a long term contract, and labour peace while you do all your termination planning.
Ask those who worked for CN Rail in the past, how the big increases kept them quiet until the shoe dropped, and thousands lost their jobs.
Jim13135 you need to run for president next election. You made really good points at meetings. You got my vote.
Wow Palopu, your sounding like a crybaby! Whether a pulp mill shuts down because there is a shortage of fibre has absolutely nothing to do with wages negotiated today or any day.
Palopu that’ llogic is flawed. Wages will not be the issue whether a mill runs or not. These mills are the largest producer of green energy in N A, For the most part the process ( making pulp) is the heat sink the turbines need to produce power. Others will fall long before the mills in PG, and if they do it will be mismanagement, as is usually the case.
>>>Know anyone else who will get $7500.00 cash, and a 7.5% increase in the next five years??
Huh?
I love uneducated posters. Maybe Jim should actually look at the CEP agreement before typing?
Posted by: Jim13135 on August 10 2012 2:25 PM
One enhancement was to increase the gym membership up to $75 and an additional $15,000 additional to the local education fund !! This makes the PPWC agreement measurably superior to the one agreed to earlier by the CEP. It took a little effort but the info is available.
I know CEP Local 1133 increased their gym membership reimbursement up to $150 from the previous contract’s $75. We also had the $15,000 already agreed to, it was part of the package the members accepted. Where is the superiority there?
Posted by: Dearth on August 10 2012 3:47 PM
They can only strike on bull session not main wage talk if they had gone on strike over main wage they would of been on their own with no support for strike pay but bull sessions they would get strike pay
Posted by: Jim13135 on August 10 2012 4:03 PM
No way Dearth, they don’t vote on bull sessions separately anymore…that is old school! So there is no way they can strike on local issues. One thing about the PPWC is they are democratically operated, so there is no business agent to tell them how to vote!
Wow….
The CEP is democratically run with total local autonomy. Our paid national reps are there to support the locals and are trained to do this, not tell the local what to do! It actually goes the other way around!
We vote on the package as a whole, but we have the right to strike on local issues or main wage. To Dearth’s point we actually would get more support on a main wage strike than a bull session strike. Hell, we would have gotten full support if Local 9 went on strike and we couldn’t cross the picket lines to go to work…. Probably a little more support than the Local 9 members on the picket lines would be getting!
1133 would get strike support? You make me laugh….I was a 1133 member for over 20 years and we got strike pay once, and they only coughed up half of what was promised. Then we paid support of $200 a week when the big locals went out. I collected for a couple of weeks and paid for a couple of months. Do the math.
ANY union member that is using the big carrot of strike pay when making a decision on a contract offer just doesn’t understand how wrong that is.
BTW-a gym membership does not make a superior contract.
I wasn’t the one that said the gym membership made for a superior contract, that was your post.
“Posted by: Jim13135 on August 10 2012 2:25 PM
One enhancement was to increase the gym membership up to $75 and an additional $15,000 additional to the local education fund !! This makes the PPWC agreement measurably superior to the one agreed to earlier by the CEP. It took a little effort but the info is available.”
You quite clearly point to the $75, and the $15,000 in your comment and then say “This makes the PPWC agreement measurably superior to the one agreed to earlier by the CEP.” I just pointed out that 1133 gets $150, and we already had the $15,000 that Local 9 had to go back to the table to get. I was asking how your contract was superior.
I donât know how the CEP worked 20 years ago, I was still in high school, but for the past ten, I have been fully active in Local 1133. As a wage delegate, I was even involved in this bargain. Strike pay isnât a carrot, it is a way of letting a member vote for what he believes in and not having such a financial burden while picketing. Instead of an outright no to a strike because a member can’t afford it, this will give them some options to stand up for what is right.
Part of the solidarity of the CEP is the strike support. When CPLP was picked as target, caucus was fully prepared to support 1133 and 603 monetarily if needed. No different the amount that was given by our local for the last round of bargaining to help the other locals pushing the pattern through the industry. When that money wasnât used it was fully rebated back to the locals, then to the individual members that had it taken from their cheques.
I also have no doubt, that if it was needed the support from the other locals in caucus would be there, as well as from the national, if 1133 and 603 felt that a strike was unavoidable this year. As it was, it worked out to be unnecessary.
“Strike pay isnât a carrot, it is a way of letting a member vote for what he believes in and not having such a financial burden while picketing.”
Really? It doesn’t matter what YOU believe in, if your caucus doesn’t support your local going on strike you will get zero strike pay. Ask one of your old timers how much support 1133 got when they went on strike for a compressed work week.
Negotiations for increases in pay and benefits allows Unions to take their eye off the ball.
The issue is job security. Now that the 5 year contract is signed the union boys will go back to sleep, and the company will go to work to see how many jobs they can kill off.
As an example. PG Pulp and Paper could shut down the pulp and paper lines, and just produce power for Ipco, and Northwood, with the surplus being sold to Hydro. This would probably generate more revenue that running the mill.
Palopu, without the heatsink of production the turbines produce little power. PG has some cooling capacity, Intercon none.
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