www.ecao.org 12 BARGAINING T 2019-2022 Principal Agreement Negotiations Concluded The Electrical Trade Bargaining Agency (ETBA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Construction Council of Ontario (IBEW/CCO) concluded provincial bargaining the week of February 11, 2019. As the legal representative of the ECAO in all matters relevant to labour negotiations in Ontario, the ETBA and its representatives had been preparing for bargaining since October 2017. Joint Proposal (no strike, no lockout agreement) discussions began with the IBEW/ CCO in February 2018, and an agreed-upon Joint Proposal was signed on October 1, 2018. There were three (3) distinct, albeit related, phases of this round of negotiations. Local bargaining took place from November 2018 to January 2019 across the Province. Early February was when bargaining for Line (Yellow Pages) and Communications (Green Pages) took place. Finally, the week of February 11 saw the provincial agreement (Blue Pages) negotiated. An important goal for this round of bargaining was for local areas to have meaningful language changes, and in most areas favourable changes were made. Local appendices were ratified by the ETBA and IBEW/CCO on January 21, 2019. We have not yet been able to negotiate changes to the Line Agreement and will strive to continue discussions with the IBEW/CCO in this regard leading up to the beginning, and throughout the life, of the new Principal Agreement. The ETBA was able to adopt most of the changes Toronto negotiated for the Communications Agreement and will meet with the IBEW/CCO in the near future (if not already by the time this magazine is published) to discuss changes to the scope clause in jurisdictions outside of Toronto. Although we were unable to obtain language changes at the provincial level to the Blue Pages at this time, we did not “give up” any language. We were fortunate to agree upon wage increases over the next three years without proceeding to Final Offer Selection. As a reminder, Final Offer Selection is a process under our Joint Proposal whereby an arbitrator chooses either the ETBA’s final wage offer or the IBEW’s final wage offer, whichever is the most reasonable. Final Offer Selection does not consider language changes or the lack thereof. Also, as part of the Joint Proposal, the ETBA and IBEW/ CCO agreed to a Post Negotiated Wage Adjustment (PNWA), which has been part of the agreement since the first Joint Proposal was negotiated in 1992. The PNWA is calculated based upon the average of the two highest wage agreements among eight (8) identified trades: Mechanical, Millwrights, Sheet Metal, Refrigeration, Sprinkler Fitters, Ironworkers, Operating Engineers and Boilermakers. While we were optimistic that this round of bargaining would result in more meaningful language changes, locally and provincially, we are pleased with the outcome of local bargaining and believe our relationship with the IBEW/CCO will continue to strengthen over the next three (3) years. We do not have to wait three (3) years for additional discussion and changes to occur, and your ETBA, along with the ECA Line and ECAO’s Communications Committee, will continue to strive to make improvements to the agreements. Our goals remain: increasing the use of ECAO contractors, and increasing IBEW membership, while putting more IBEW members to work; in short increasing our market share. We are grateful for the time and dedication of ETBA representatives to our mandate to promote sound labour relations across the industry. ETBA representatives are volunteers appointed by each area ECA to represent their area during bargaining and throughout the year on matters that could impact the Province. It is important to recognize that these representatives carve numerous days and hours from their day-to-day roles in order to help to improve our industry. Thank you to all of these valuable representatives and to others behind the scenes who contributed to this round of provincial bargaining. By Chris Cimek, Chair, Electrical Trade Bargaining Agency and Jodi Travers, Manager, Labour Relations, ECAO