No news is good news as CUPE, Government talk over weekend
By Nelson Daily Staff
Nelson CUPE Local 748 president Michelle Bennett is playing the waiting game as provincial-level bargaining for CUPE education members continued during the weekend in Vancouver.
“I haven’t heard anything yet but we’re ready to go if we have to go,” Bennett said Sunday evening.
“We’re hoping for the best, but planning for the worst,” Bennett added.
CUPE education support workers and and provincial government met last week to forge a new deal.
Friday, the union issued a press release on its website saying talks were making progress and the two parties planned to continue to bargain through the weekend.
“There has been give and take for the first time at the table,” said Colin Pawson, Chair of the CUPE BC K-12 Presidents’ Council in a release on the website.
“Discussions are ongoing, but the negotiations have reached a critical stage.”
The union, representing education assistants, clerks, trades workers, bus drivers and other staff across the province, said they have made every effort to be fair and reasonable with the province.
CUPE locals serve 27,000 education workers in the K-12 school system across the province and have been without a contact since June 30, 2012. The parties began bargaining in the fall of 2012.
In June, having been without a contract for more than a year, the union stages information pickets, including the CUPE Local 748 march outside Hume School, to make the public aware of there plight instead of instituting job action during the end of the school year.
Talks between the two sides stalled in early August, which CUPE blames on what it calls the government’s lack of preparation.
Cherryl MacLeod of Castlegar is representing the Kootenays on the CUPE BC K-12 Presidents’ Council.
Comments