MONTREAL – By a vote of 65.4%, Bell Canada’s clerical employees ratified their new collective agreement negotiated with Bell by the Canadian Telecommunications Employees’ Association (CTEA).
The telephone vote from July 7 to 14 was supervised by Ernst & Young and 72.5% of eligible members exercised their right to vote.
The new agreement will take effect Monday, July 18, 2005 and will expire on May 31, 2009. Here are some highlights from the press release:
* No job losses due to potential outsourcing or subcontracting for the duration of the collective agreement. The agreement protects all employees who are permanent at the time of signing, meaning 93% of CTEA members.
* A new salary structure categorized by groups, along with wage increases of 2.8% in 2005 and 2006 and 3% in 2007 and 2008.
* A wage freeze for 42% of employees: those with a pay rate higher than that of their new salary group. A lump sum payment of $500 would be accorded for each year that is frozen.
"Negotiating this proposed agreement forced us to make difficult choices," said Brenda Knight, CTEA president. "We work in an industry that is experiencing huge changes and under the circumstances, our members had asked us to focus on job security. This is what we did, but we had to make concessions on the wage front. In my opinion, this vote reflects our members’ pragmatism in the face of a difficult situation; it doesn’t mean they are satisfied."
The CTEA is an independent union certified in the 1940s by the Canadian Labour Relations Board to represent employees of Bell Canada. Over the years, the CTEA has been certified as the bargaining representative for many other groups of employees working for employers such as Comtech, Nexacor, Télébec S.E.C., Amdocs, Yellow Pages Group and Connexim. The CTEA has some 14,000 members mostly employees of Bell Canada, its subsidiaries and affiliates.
