SHERBROOKE The labour dispute at Tl 7 (CHLT, TVA-Sherbrooke) has now ended. Locked out since January 30, the advertising specialists, who are members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE-FTQ), accepted last night the terms of an agreement, which is also their very first labour contract.
The agreement also includes a back-to-work clause. Both parties signed the document late last night (Monday). The six sales representatives returned to work at 9:00 am this morning (Tuesday). Richard Labelle, president of CUPE Local 4646, indicated that the initial collective agreement for the sales representatives would be for a period of three years, ending in April 2007. General working conditions are in line with those enjoyed by other CHLT employees.
On the monetary side, Richard Labelle states that, while underlining the quality and seriousness of the discussions of the last few days, certain gains have been made in terms of wages but, more importantly, both parties have succeeded, by joint agreement, in creating a salary framework for sales personnel who are, as we know, paid entirely on a commission basis. The conflict was resolved after an intensive round of negotiations lasting several days. It should be recalled that on March 25, 2004, CUPE and management of the TVA station in Trois-Rivir0065s announced an agreement in the case of sales personnel at CHEM.
In doing so, both parties indicated at the time that the agreement had paved the way for further negotiations at CHLT. Therefore, both employer and union returned to the negotiating table last week. To the three very busy days of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, another day was added yesterday (Monday) which finally led to loose ends being tied up and an agreement being reached to the satisfaction of both parties. The advertising specialists at TVA-Sherbrooke joined the union in the fall of 2002, as did those at TVA stations in Trois-Rivir0065s, Rimouski and Saguenay who joined CUPE in the following year.
All these sale representatives are members of the same local (CUPE 4646), even though they negotiate via different bargaining units. Following the agreements in Trois-Rivir0065s and Sherbrooke, we expect the issue will soon come up in both Rimouski and Saguenay. It will be the first collective agreement in each of these cases.
CUPE represents some 7,000 members in the communications sector in Quebec (TVA Network, Radio Canada, Global, TQS, Radiomd0069a, Telus, Vido0074ron, Cogeco, NFB, Journal de Qub0065c, Technicolor, etc.). CUPE is also active in a number of other sectors, including health and social services, education, urban and air transportation, Quebec and Canadian public corporations and organizations, and the hydroelectric and municipal sectors. With nearly 100,000 members all told, CUPE is the largest union affiliated to the FTQ.
This and other press releases are available on-line at: scfp.qc.ca