Member Voices: Winter School 2025
January 30, 2025
Earlier in January, 2025, FSA member in Geomatics Ron Tuck attended the Canadian Labour Congress's Winter School on a TEAM Program scholarship. Below, Ron recounts the experience of participating in the Winter School's course: Collective Bargaining Level 2. Ron is also a member of the FSA's Collective Agreement Committee.
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I would like to thank the FSA for allowing me to attend the CLC Winter School again this year.
Collective Bargaining Level 2 was a great course with awesome facilitation and a couple of fantastic guest speakers. At Level 2, we spent more time going through collective agreements than in Level 1--looking for weaknesses in the language and areas for additions or deletions. Speakers talked about bargaining themes, individual duties at the table, note taking, watching the expressions/demeanor of management, and protocol agreements--among other topics. We went through the steps to follow when an impasse is reached, strike votes, and how to use a strong- vote to get management back to the table. Jennifer Glougie, Chair of the BC Labour Relations Board (LRB), spoke of union rights in bargaining, protected under the LRB, and what recourse the union has if their rights are not respected by the employer. We also had a guest speaker from WeBenefits lecture on bargaining for benefit increases, which was especially great since I attended Benefit Bargaining three years ago at Winter School.
The last day-or-so of the week-long course was spent in mock bargaining. We were given a collective agreement,, asked to propose three monetary and three non-monetary proposals, and to try to get a deal. I was assigned the position of CFO of the fictitious employer, unfortunately, but it was a good experience negotiating from that side of the table.
The course was a great experience with lots of learning that will benefit myself and the FSA. I appreciate the opportunity.