Split Decision

By a margin of 4540 to 4487, members of the Telecommunications Workers Union have voted to reject the October 10 tentative agreement between their union and their employer, Telus.

About seven years ago, this page was on a bargaining committee for a Union local that had a policy of not releasing the vote totals for ratification votes beyond pass/fail. I lobbied at every turn to change that policy, as I felt it was undemocratic and did nothing to build credibility with our membership and the public. Eventually, I gave up and resigned from the Local executive, but to this day I contend that having the overwhelming majority of your members reject a TA sent a clear message to the employer.

However, having 53 members reject a TA...could be a lot of things. There are always members in any Local who believe the TA will pass so they vote no on principle, just as there are always members who don't completely grasp the concept of Collective Bargaining, and vote no to cast blame on their Bargaining Committee for coming up short. This traditional 'spiking' of the vote actually cut the tree down in this case, and was made much easier by the fact it took TWU 18 days to execute the ratification vote - and this is a union in the communications industry?

This page isn't out to be overly critical of TWU's leadership - TWU President Bruce Bell was clear all along that the vote would be extremely close. However, this page contends that much of the problem that Telus workers have had in securing a collective agreement over the past five years is the fallout from the forced merger between TWU and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), who, up until losing a run-off vote to TWU, represented Telus workers in Alberta. Just as Telus were treated like alien invaders when they arrived at BC Tel headquarters in Burnaby, so was TWU when they showed up at Telus' offices in Calgary.

How great was TWU's awareness of the differing labour relations climate in Alberta from their home base in British Columbia? In Alberta, Unions have to do as much of a sell to their existing members as they do to potential members - they go along out of enlightened self-interest, not because their Local President says so. I also question how much TWU realized that they were in a de facto first contract situation rather than another round of negotiations with BC Tel.

Hindsight being 20-20, this page also wonders if labour federations and the CLC guessed wrong in making the service and retail sectors the major organizing priority for Canada's labour movement. Because of unions tilting at the Wal-Mart windmill, the opportunity to make substantial inroads in the technology sector, particularly after the dot-com bust, may have been lost for a generation. Establishing a stronger union culture in the technology sector would have meant substantial dues revenue to organize on multiple fronts, and would more than likely have pushed TWU's margin of error well beyond those 53 votes.