Month: July 2021

CALGARY – The Canadian Union of Public Employees and WestJet have reached a tentative agreement covering the 650 cabin crew at WestJet Encore. Encore is WestJet’s regional carrier with hubs in Calgary and Toronto.

Details of the agreement are not being released until CUPE members have an opportunity to review and vote on the proposal.  CUPE 4070 Vice President Jamie Loiselle said he was pleased with the deal, and that the union would be recommending acceptance.

CUPE represents about 4,000 flight attendants and cabin crew members at WestJet mainline, Encore and Swoop. There has been a collective agreement at the mainline since April and bargaining at Swoop continues for a first contract.

“It’s been a difficult year in the airline sector due to the pandemic, but we are starting to see things turn around,” said Loiselle. “Our flights are filling up, more staff are coming back from layoff, and we are hopeful that we will soon have collective agreements covering all our members at the three WestJet companies.”

The union expects ratification meetings to begin on August 7th.

Labour board rules on objections, counts votes, employees vote yes

CALGARY – After multiple issues before the labour board, ballots were finally counted today, and 171 Alpha House employees voted 89% in favour of joining the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

“Congratulations to the employees of Alpha House on joining Canada’s largest union,” said CUPE Alberta President Rory Gill.  “You now have the collective strength of over 700,000 CUPE members in your corner.”

Gill said this victory was particularly sweet as there have been numerous difficulties leading to today’s decision. Gill said those issues have been resolved, and he is looking forward to their full participation in CUPE Alberta.

“It’s never easy to form a union at your worksite,” said Gill. “We had some strong disagreements with Alpha House, but those disagreements have been resolved to the satisfaction of the employer, CUPE, and the affected employees.”

“And today, the ballots have been counted and the employees’ voices have been heard.”

EDMONTON – The President of the union representing city waste collectors is pointing the finger at a third party contractor for the lack of garbage collection at 13,000 Edmonton homes this week.

Many homes in the southwest end of the city did not have waste collected on their scheduled day last week as part of the city’s new cart rollout.

“Some news reports, and some citizens, have been pointing the finger at city workers, but that’s not fair or true,” said CUPE Local 30 President Eric Lewis.

“These carts were not collected because the contractor doesn’t know the work, doesn’t know the routes, and doesn’t know the city,” said Lewis. “If the city kept this work in-house, problems like this wouldn’t happen.”

Lewis said that while the problems with pick up will get sorted out in time, he expects further problems to pop up in the future.

“When you privatize services, you pay less and get shoddy service. Accountability is lowered, and residents end up grumpy and unhappy over and over.”