BUFA MEDIATION UPDATE

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Mediation between BUFA and the Employer began on Tuesday, October 25 at 4:30 pm with Mr Michael Werier of D’arcy and Deacon LLP presiding as Mediator.  The two sides convened in separate boardrooms with the Mediator shuttling between the parties.  BUFA spent more than an hour articulating our position on all outstanding issues to the Mediator. Included in this was a detailed presentation of the presence of surpluses in approved BU budgets and the Employer’s strategy of utilizing them to address their present pension and other obligations, and weaning off surpluses to address their obligations over the next two fiscal years.

On Wednesday BUFA presented a comprehensive and revised proposal on all outstanding issues. Our offer was designed to put an end to the dispute while maintaining our principled insistence on a fair and equitable settlement for BUFA members.  After spending two hours discussing the proposal with the Employer, the Mediator returned with the appended hand-written note, reasserting the Employer’s October 21^st all-or-nothing position, with the following exceptions. Their year 3 salary position was raised from 2.75% to 2.9%, and they offered a fourth year at 2.9%. The offer also contained a $750 back-to-work payment for each member, which represents approximately 20% of the roughly $875000 that the Employer has saved on our salaries and benefits during the job action (to Thursday, October 28).  They proposed to keep the remaining 80% for their own use.

In our offer to the Employer, we also proposed that if the annual pension liability payment fell below $3.125 million during any year of the contract, the Employer would apply the difference to the pension liability. For example, if the payment fell to $2.6 million, the Employer would be obliged to commit $525000 to the pension problem.  We asserted that this mechanism would address the Employer’s concern about the ongoing deficiency payments of the plan. We were unsettled by their response. They rejected our proposal and stated that their emerging priority was rather to fill unidentified, vacant administrative positions.

It is the view of the negotiating team that this counter-proposal represents an attempt to subvert the mediation process.

BUFA is spending the morning preparing for today’s meeting, and will be back at Mediation this afternoon. We are hopeful that today the Employer will be willing to engage in more substantive negotiations.

The BUFA bargaining team.