Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

The negotiations started in July 2006. From the start, the Corps of Commissionaires displayed its usual bag of bad tricks. They fired one of the members of the PSAC negotiating team and imposed disciplinary measures on another. However, that only served to strengthen our members’ resilience and solidarity. The members fought the firing and the disciplinary measures and they won. The Corps had to reinstate our member and it dropped the disciplinary measures against the other member of the negotiating team.

The parties reached a tentative agreement in February 2007 and the agreement was promptly ratified by the PSAC. However, the Corps kept refusing to sign it. This prompted the PSAC to file a complaint of bad faith bargaining and, after one day of hearings on October 2, the Corps finally agreed to ratify the new collective agreement.

The contract provides our members with a grievance and arbitration procedure, health and safety provisions, a hiring process, job security and salary increases. The contract expires in March 09.

For our members, the signing of this collective agreement demonstrates once again that solidarity among the membership will always win the struggle, even against the toughest employer.