Your BCGEU bargaining committee and Vantage met on October 6, 2022 to continue negotiations to renew the collective agreement. At our last bargaining session in April, your union committee tabled its monetary proposals. Our monetary proposals reflected the priorities you identified for us, including keeping up with the cost of living and helping you get ahead, improving health and welfare benefits, and adding a pension plan.

Vantage responded to our proposals with a highly concessionary package that would largely take employees backwards. Vantage proposed to claw back the following from your existing contract:

- Federal holidays would no longer be added as paid holidays (meaning that in future years, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation-observed recently on September 30^th-would not be a paid holiday).

- Days off in lieu of paid holidays-currently included in your PTO calculation-would be removed, resulting in at least 11 fewer days off per year. You would still receive holiday pay, but not the time off.

- Employees in their first five years' employment would have access to five fewer paid days off per year when PTO is broken down in separate categories including annual vacation and sick leave. Your bargaining committee supports placing PTO in separate categories, but not reducing the number of days.

Lakeside Manor employees have been without a pay increase since April 1, 2020. Wages were low to begin with and increases in the cost of living have put employees even further behind. That is why your bargaining committee proposed wages that would get you ahead and protect you against future cost of living increases with a cost of living adjustment, or "COLA", in the final year of the contract. We pointed out to Vantage how many fast-food restaurants offer better starting wages and benefits without the same level of responsibility for residents.

It seems Vantage either did not listen or did not take us seriously, and tabled an insulting lowball offer. The Employer's wage proposal for Lakeside Manor of 2% per year for three years (or 6% cumulative total, non-compounded) would not even keep up with the rising cost of living. For example, a Multi Service Worker, currently earning minimum wage, would see their wage increase to only $16.61/hour in April 2023. That's only 96¢/hour total increase over three years, and it's simply not enough.

Based on recent Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures and the projections of many major financial institutions for future CPI increases, a pay increase of 6% would be equivalent to a pay decrease of roughly 5% over the life of the agreement. The Employer's wage proposal would leave you even further behind, without any protection against the rising cost of living, and we heard you say clearly that you need to get ahead.

Wages are less of an issue at Kiwanis Manor because government wage levelling to the Community Health public sector rates has continued, government has said that wage levelling will be made permanent, and wage increases being negotiated at the Community Health table will apply to Kiwanis Manor employees. Vantage has benefitted from the wage levelling top-up. By paying for the top ups, it's the government, and not Vantage, that has paid for your higher rates of pay since 2020. Despite these savings to the Employer, Vantage has not agreed to any kind of signing bonus or lump sum payment for Kiwanis employees. And in response to our demands that would benefit both Kiwanis and Lakeside employees, Vantage has:

- Not agreed to any improvements to the health and welfare benefit plans

- Not agreed to add a pension plan

- Not agreed to a working short premium, or any language to address your workload concerns

- Not agreed to a new category of paid special leave to use in case of family member illness or household emergency, etc.

- Not agreed to a laundry allowance for employees who wash their own uniforms, or a shoe allowance for employees who must wear non-slip or safety footwear

Vantage's proposal included minor monetary improvements that would benefit employees in limited ways. They include:

- Increasing the night shift premium by 25¢/hour to a new rate of 75¢/hour-but no increases to other shift premiums and no new weekend shift premium

- Criminal record check renewals paid for by the employer-but these are required only once every five years

- Mileage for using a personal vehicle for employer business increased to the Canada Revenue Agency reasonable per-kilometre maximum-but very few employees ever drive their own vehicles for employer business

- The amount an employee could claim when a resident damages their personal possessions increases by $300 to a new maximum of $400-though employees rarely qualify for such claims

- Meal allowance when an employee works at least two and one-half hours of overtime and the Employer does not provide a meal increased by $10 to a new maximum of $20-though employees rarely qualify for this allowance

Vantage said it was open to moving funds from the improvements listed above into other priority areas, but that it was not interested in adding much funding on top of that. Given the low cost of Vantage's proposals, there was not enough money on the table to make a meaningful difference in your priority areas, like benefits, pension, shift premiums other than night shift, etc. So, your bargaining committee rejected the Employer's proposal. Because of the insulting lowball nature of Vantage's proposal, we decided against tabling a counterproposal. There was simply not enough money in Vantage's proposal for us to counter without making it seem that our demands were not serious. We invited Vantage to come back on Friday to table a more serious proposal, and it declined.

To be clear: your bargaining committee remains committed to renewing the collective agreement as soon as possible. We are prepared to return to the bargaining table when Vantage is ready to make a serious monetary proposal that gets you ahead instead of leaving you behind. In the meantime, we will take some time to consider our options to pressure Vantage towards the fair deal you deserve.

You can expect to hear more from us next week. In the meantime, please speak with a worksite member of your bargaining committee if you have any questions or concerns.

In solidarity,

Spencer Bigford, Bargaining Committee Chair (Lakeside Manor)
Luz Dionela, Bargaining Committee Member (Kiwanis Manor)
Chrystal Halvorson, Bargaining Committee Member (Lakeside Manor)
Ryan Stewart, Staff Representative, Negotiations Department

Download PDF of notice here 

UWU/MoveUP