November Newspaper

President’s Article - Doug Jones

We have received a lot of compliments on our latest Agreement from other Locals which is sure great to hear. As Teck moves into negotiations with Elkview Coal, we now see how important it was for us to stand our ground and avoid those major concessions. We find now that not a lot of other Locals have post-retirement benefits to the degree that we have. From a monetary perspective, this last Collective Agreement is the second largest in our history which it should be, given the position Teck was in.

We have resolved the issue of vacation scheduling for 2005. Employees now have options as to how they deal with the unpaid portion of holidays. We have been told the supervisors will all be brought up to date on this issue.

I had a conversation with Richard Boyce, the President of the Highland Valley Copper Local), who sits on the Provincial Apprenticeship Committee. He said when they reviewed each area of the province, Teck in Trail seems to be one of the only companies that does not have any apprentices to speak of. If this Company is trying to repair the relationship with us, why don’t they start by looking after simple issues like apprenticeships and general manpower. It would seem to me to be a good place to start. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss apprenticeships for our members at any time!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Glenn Scaia for his many years of service to the Union in various capacities. Glenn did a tremendous amount of research for us as a Chief Shop Steward. Glenn has decided to step down as Recording Secretary for personal reasons and we wish him all the best.

We have asked Derm Jackman to fill the position of Recording Secretary until the election in May ‘06. Welcome aboard, Derm!

Our "Strike Appreciation" Dinner last Saturday was a huge success – an awesome meal, good guest speakers, and special guests from the community. Renegade provided great music and kept everyone dancing into the morning hours. Ken Neumann, our National Director from Toronto was able to attend, as was Angela Schira the Secretary Treasurer of the BC Federation of Labour. Keith Turcotte and Steve Dewell were also able to attend so we could show our appreciation for a job well done.

Presentations were made to Mayor Bogs from the City of Trail, Danny Ferraro on behalf of Ferraro Foods, Dan Ashman from AM Ford, Jack Balfour (Balfour & Sons), Brian LeRose (B/W Terra Nova) Gord Trotter, representing both Canada Safeway and UFCW and Randy McCallum. Each of these special guests were of great assistance during our strike and deserve our appreciation.

We also presented a 40 minute Power Point show that Derm Jackman and Rick Georgetti collaborated on. This presentation gives a pictorial history of our strike and has recorded "union" music playing in the background. Hopefully, we will have a limited number of these for sale soon.

I heard a number of people say we haven’t had a party like that in our Union Hall for a long time and we need to do it more often.

While we are saying our "thank you’s", a big round of applause to Armindo deMedeiros for all of his hard work in organizing our social functions throughout the strike and for the dinner and dance. Both Army and Pat Zanier were instrumental in organizing our barbeques this summer which were enjoyed by everyone!

We owe a big debt of gratitude too to all the Picket Coordinators and Captains, Strike Coordinators and Financial Officers, and to our Strategic Planning Committee for their work on the power sale issue. All of these members certainly donated more that their required hours to make this strike a success.

And last, but certainly not least, a big pat on the back to all of you for your continued support throughout this time. Without the solidarity of our membership, our fight for a fair collective agreement would have been much harder to achieve. We all learned that "solidarity works!" As your President, you have all made me very proud!

In solidarity, Doug.