In our communities.
For our communities.

Membership Update: June 2021

Office Operations

The CUPE 503 Office continues to operate with staff working seamlessly from home serving CUPE 503 Members. Members can contact staff by calling 613-230-2456 and can use the directory to direct dial. For general e-mail inquiries the email [email protected] is also available and your email will be forwarded to the appropriate person for action. As the Province is starting to “re-open” with COVID-19 public health restrictions easing, we have developed an Office Re-opening plans that aligns with the three stages. We will continue to update the membership as things shift in our Monthly Updates. Please also note that our staff have moved to Summer Hours with the virtual office closing as of 4:00pm for June, July and August.

Bargaining Updates

City of Ottawa Inside/Outside Collective Agreement:

The arbitration was June 1st 2021 for both parties to present the outstanding items in their packages. Both Parties (the Union and the Employer) have until June 27th 2021 to submit Reply Briefs and Arbitrator informed the Parties the Panel will be meeting mid-July to review the submissions and an award will be anticipated usually within 2 months.

Ottawa Public Library Collective Agreement: 

Bargaining is scheduled for four dates in June 14/16/22/23 2021

City of Ottawa Part-time Recreation & Culture: 

The Bargaining Team has finalized the survey and it will be sent to the members who we have contact information for. The Employer has indicated they will not be ready to schedule bargaining dates until mid-late August 2021.

City of Clarence Rockland: 

Both Parties have ratified the 3-year Collective Agreement and we are now moving through the stages of having the Collective Agreement prepared in gender neutral language and translation.

Forest Hill Long Term Care: 

After several bargaining dates the parties are moving Conciliation on June 29th 2021.

Embassy West Retirement Living: 

Bargaining is scheduled for June 17th and 18th and June 28th 2021 is Conciliation.

Sandfield Place Long Term Care: 

Conciliation was May 17th and the parties reached an impasse. At this time the Employer is being very limiting on Arbitrator Selection and without movement on the part of the Employer this arbitration may not take place until April 2022 due to available dates with the Arbitrator.

Champlain Ontario Health (formally Champlain LHINS):

The Local has served notice to bargaining and the employer has responded dates will not be available until Fall 2021. CUPE National continues discussions with Ontario Health about the scope of the Central Table.

Communications Campaign Spring & Summer 2021

After hearing from the Membership there is a desire for increased communications from the Local, the CUPE 503 Executive Council adopted an 8 Pillar Communications Campaign on May 4th and will be evaluated at the September 2021 Council meeting based on the deliverables.

The week of June 7th the Local completed a mailout to all active members in the database (13,000+) promoting a Harvest of Personal Email Addresses, the creation of Membership Ambassadors to help distribute information in work places, and the production of a CUPE 503 New Members Booklet.

The Local also completed a hard copy mailing to our 503 Executive Council and active Shop Stewards of workplace flyers to be posted on bulletin boards to promote these 4 initiatives. We also have moved our membership communications for the personal emails we do have to Mailchimp with the creation of the [email protected] email address. This is safe sender technology that helps emails land in members inboxes rather than in spam or not at all with some of the e-mail host spam filters that exist.

Our plan is to continue with a more robust distribution method that balances hard copy mailing and electronic communications for our Monthly Updates, Quarterly Bulletin, Unit Specific Updates, and promotion of meetings. We will continue to use the CUPE 503 website for communications and promotion of those updates on our CUPE 503 Facebook page.

Wrap Up

As we enter month 16 of living and working in a pandemic, we want to continue to extend our appreciation to our members for your work on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic and Recovery. We are amazed each and every day at your commitment to provide quality public services in the most unprecedented times and your resilience to adapt to the ever-changing restrictions and operational changes in work places. There is no doubt this has been a very difficult time and we thank you for your service.