It was a loud and busy afternoon outside of Pathways to Independence (Belleville) Friday afternoon at the Local 448 Union Power Rally in support of Kim Mayer, President of Local 448.
In a media release, it was said that “This is a large composite local with multiple Collective Agreements and five separate agencies. Pathways to Independence has put this local on notice that they will no longer be supporting the full-time book-off required to support this Local in the full-time capacity that is required. Pathways to Indepdence has taken away the members rights to elect their chosen leadership and we will not stand for it.”
“Pathways is union busting and they are trying to take our union down. They are denying the Local President the full-time book-off that is required to do the job,” said a source.
“They oversee five different agencies, over 800 members in our local and they’re saying they have to work full-time and do that full-time. They’ve had a full-time book-off in the last three years and it’s never been an issue until we went into bargaining and we got a 95% strike vote in agencies that we have. Now they’re saying ‘Sorry, we need you and you can’t have time off.”
“They’re trying to tear us down.”
Melissa Shaw, Regional Vice President said their constitution specifically says that any group that is over 650 members at multiple sites, the union pays that person’s wages and pension benefits to be full-time.
“So, there’s no expense to the employer. It makes no sense for them to cancel it, other than it’s an anti-union act. The other issue we have, under the Labour Relations Act, Section 86, there are provisions that once a notice to bargain is given, until radification, the employer is legally not allowed to change wages, provisions of work environments, or anything in the contract while it’s being negotiated,” she said.
“This is a direct violation of Section 86 of the Labour Relations Act, which is a big problem for the union. We are going to fight against that because it is legislation. If they wanted to do this, they have to bargain it. They can’t just say ‘Well, we’re not doing this anymore’. We’re out here because we’re not going to let the employer just arbitrarily make decisions on bargaining without it being a joint decision.”
The ralliers were picketing outside of Pathways to Independence from 11am to 1pm Friday.
(HAILEY MACDONALD)
