Bullet News GODERICH – It’s doubtful there will be a ratification vote by 380 unionized workers at Sifto’s salt mine before the end of this week, says the president of Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada Local 16-O.
As workers continued to gather at the picket line set up on North Harbour Road this afternoon, Lionel Carter said an expected meeting between the two sides in the labour dispute did not take place yesterday.
Instead, Carter said they are now aiming for early next week for a meeting at which time the union wants management to bring back to the table edited documents agreed to during negotiations that have now been signed by the union agent and require a management representative’s sign off. As well, they want a draft memorandum of agreement, and a return to work memorandum for unionized workers to be discussed.
However, Kelly Barton, who is the corporate communications manager for Compass Minerals said a document has already been signed and is awaiting the union’s approval. Compass Minerals is the parent company of Sifto Canada Corp., which owns the salt mine in Goderich.
“The company provided a signed copy of the tentative agreement to the union negotiators late last week. We are waiting for them to complete their review and ratification processes, and are looking forward to implementing the agreement so our miners can return to work as soon as possible,” she said, in an email to Bullet News Huron today.
Carter said receipt of “some other document” sent by the company Aug. 30 to the union strays from the usual practices.
“It appears that they’re telling us that that’s what we agreed to; that’s all there is. And they’re not signing anything else,” he said.
He said they were given the impression that the company would not sign off on edited documents that reflect the ‘yellow sheets’ agreed to during negotiations, which become key during arbitration. As a result, the union considers the document sent Aug. 30 to be “invalid” and will not deal with it.
Both sides in the dispute reached a tentative agreement in principle Aug. 27 during a meeting in Windsor with the mediator from the Ministry of Labour present.
Once the paperwork is done, the union will set a ratification date.
Members of CEP Local 16-O began a strike at 12:01 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 20 after negotiations between union representatives and Compass Minerals representatives broke down.
One Comment on "Ratification vote on Sifto, union agreement is delayed"
LOCAL 16-O UPDATE
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Brothers,
On Monday August 27th C.E.P. Local 16-O reached a Tentative Agreement in Principle with Sifto Canada Corp. The Union Negotiating Committee has spent the last week reviewing the agreed upon documents. At this point it appears that all the documents are in order.
Company representatives had agreed to meet with Union representatives on Wednesday, September 5th to sign all the relevant documents. Unfortunately, Sifto representatives did not show up at the agreed to meeting. The Union is extremely disappointed with the Company’s failure to attend the meeting. The Company has not offered any explanation for not attending the agreed to meeting. However, the Union did sign off on all the agreed to documents and contacted and handed over the signed documents to Sifto representatives. The local Sifto representatives told the Union that they had no authority to sign the documents. The Union has informed the Company that we are willing to meet with their committee at any time to review the documents and discuss why they will not sign them. Until the Company signs the agreed to documents we are not in a position to present the deal to our members and hold a ratification vote.
There appears to be no urgency on the Company’s behalf to meet and resolve the ongoing labour dispute. The members of Local 16-O remain united and community support remains strong.