CUPE 1004 is pleased to welcome nine new members to its local, who are employed by Bowen Island Municipality. All outdoor workers, the new members will be represented by their own unit of CUPE 1004, also known as Vancouver Civic Employees Union.
The British Columbia Labour Relations Board granted the application for certification on October 23.
“CUPE 1004 is pleased to welcome these new members to our Local,” said CUPE 1004 President Andrew Ledger. “All workers who want to belong to a union should be able to and 1004 is proud to be involved in organizing new members. We look forward to meeting and working with our newest bargaining unit to improve their working conditions.”
CUPE 1004’s newest members include employees of the Roads, Public Works, Parks and Environment departments of the island municipality – reached by a 20-minute ferry ride from West Vancouver.
The municipality serves a population of about 3,600.
“We look forward to the stability that unionization can bring, along with fair wages and the certainty of a collective agreement,” said local organizer Brad MacDonald, who works in the municipality’s Roads department.
“Our members take comfort in the representation that CUPE gives us, and look forward to getting our first collective agreement, where everything is in writing and there are no uncertainties.”
CUPE 1004 will negotiate the first collective agreement on behalf of the workers, which needs to be delivered within the next 12 months.
CUPE 1004 represents more than 3,500 workers including outside workers for the City of Vancouver and Vancouver Parks Board, as well as employees of the Portland Hotel Society and Pacific National Exhibition. CUPE, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, is Canada’s largest union with more than 700,000 members nation-wide.