Our latest contest gave GSU members a chance to win four adjoining seats for the Rider’s Sept. 5 game against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, with the contest winner getting two seats and nominating a fellow GSU member who would win the remaining two seats. Greg was agonizing over several co-workers in his contest entry, and now that he’s won he’s making a tough call on who we send the extra set of tickets to. Good luck, Greg. On the bright side, it’s great that you are surrounded by co-workers you think so highly of.

Thanks to everyone who played along. We’ve got tickets to the upcoming Sept. 17 game, so watch for another ticket contest and your chance to enter, soon.

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Aug. 24, 2021

We’re giving away four tickets to the Riders v. Blue Bombers Labour Day Classic

We have in our hot little hands four adjoining seats for the Rider’s highly anticipated Sept. 5 game against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. We’re going to help keep your personal bubble as small as possible by asking you to choose who will be in the two seats beside you at the game.

If you could take a fellow GSU member to the Labour Day Classic, who would they be, and why would you choose to take them?

Get your entry to us at gsu@gsu.ca by noon on Aug. 27. We will draw one winner to receive two Labour Day tickets and we’ll send two tickets to the GSU member they have named.

Good luck!

Contest details are available here.

The stucco work has come to a halt while we await the arrival and installation of new windows. Roughly 80 percent of the building has been covered in a scratch coat, with the final 20 percent awaiting window installation before the remaining scratch coat and stucco can be cleanly and precisely applied.

It’s been an interesting process, particularly when the aged wooden soffits were torn down. GSU staff watched dirt, straw, substantial dust bunnies, newspaper, and even a pair of old dress shoes fall past their windows.

Undertaking renovations during a global pandemic has proved interesting as manufacturers struggled to get supplies and keep their reduced workforces safe with COVID protocols, and that slowed down and sometimes stopped the flow of products. We remain hopeful that our window company is able to get our windows put together and shipped to us by mid-August so the stucco project can be completed by early autumn.

In the meantime, if you are missing your old dress shoes, let us know.

GSU members can face many weather-related challenges, whether it’s working in a confined space in the heat of the summer months or diving into frigid water in the winter.

If you work anywhere other than a climate controlled office, check out your employer’s policy on working in extreme conditions. Your employer may also post relevant workplace policies on an employee information board.

Information links on extreme weather and Saskatchewan workers are linked below. Check it out, but be aware that your employer’s extreme temperature policy may go beyond this legislation.

Legal overview of what covers whom
www.ccohs.ca – temperature_legislation

General fact sheets and Information for all workers
www.ccohs.ca – temperature

Information on thermal stress Canada Labour Code (Federal)
www.canada.ca – thermal-stress-work-place.html

Hot Conditions – Worksafe SK
www.worksafesask.ca – Hot Conditions Guidelines_2021_v3

Cold Conditions Worksafe SK
www.worksafesask.ca – Working in Cold Conditions-Fact-Sheet_v4

As always, don’t hesitate to contact a GSU staff rep if you have questions or need assistance.

There has been considerable debate about Canada Day celebrations.

The tragic discoveries of unmarked graves at Canada’s Residential Schools sites has left many of us unsure how to appropriately and respectfully celebrate Canada Day, and if Canada Day 2021 is a day we should be celebrating. Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme’s shared his thoughts on the upcoming statutory holiday when he was interviewed on CBC’s The National on June 27.

“I would never tell somebody what to and what not to celebrate. You know, in 2021, we all inherited this. Nobody today created residential schools. Nobody today created the Indian Act. Nobody today created the Sixties Scoop. But we all inherited this. And if we want to say we’re proud Canadians, then we will accept the beautiful country we have today, and we will accept what we all inherited.

And what I would challenge is: Everybody on Canada Day in this country, if you say you’re a proud Canadian, read the Truth and Reconciliation ‘Calls to Action.’ Over 100,000 residential school survivors told their story – including my parents – and they created the Truth and Reconciliation ‘Calls to Action.’ Bring that into your personal life, your social life, your business life. And read the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls ‘Calls to Action.’ There’s 231 Calls to Action. If we can all own those a little bit in this country, in one generation we would overcome so many challenges today, that our next generation won’t inherit this. We will make them more as Dreamers.”

You can watch the complete interview with Chief Delorme starting at :36 in the clip, above.

GSU’s Regina office is receiving some much needed work. The aging brick exterior needed some TLC and the options were to repoint it or change things up with stucco. The decision was made to do latter.

“The building is owned by GSU, and that means we aren’t paying a mortgage or monthly rental for office space and parking,” said GSU’s assistant general secretary Lynn Woods. “There has been discussion in the past whether it was better to rebuild, move to a rented location, or maintain the building we own. Ultimately, the benefits of the current office and it’s location made it desirable to do the needed upgrades and stay put where we are.”

As with any project, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right, and new windows will replace the wooden sliders now in place. The old flashing on the building was also cracking, bent, and failing, and stucco allows new flashing to be properly installed and that is welcome news as some water was starting to find its way into the building.

Regina’s Artistic Masonry & Stucco is busy doing their preliminary work in preparation for the window installation in August and the stucco application shortly after. It is expected the renovations will be complete by early autumn.

With COVID restrictions lifting we are able to welcome members back into the office again, so if you find yourself in Regina, drop by and see us at 2334 McIntyre Street. We’d be happy to show you around.

If you are a Local 15 (Nutrien) member you can expect to receive a copy of your newly-signed collective agreement booklet soon.

GSU staff reps are working through their spring visitation schedule and they are distributing agreements as they go. If a staff rep has already been through your area, we will be sending agreements your way by mail.

If you don’t receive a copy of your agreement in June, get in touch with us and we’ll get one in the mail to you. In the meantime, you can always view or print your agreement online on GSU’s web page at gsu.ca.

According to GSU general secretary Hugh Wagner, June 6 marked the 85th anniversary of GSU.

 “The union was founded by country elevator and Regina head office employees of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool in 1936 at the height of the Great Depression,” said Wagner. “Two of the early rallying points for union members were a pension plan and the eight-hour day.”

 A central current of the unionizing effort was the common desire for dignity and respect in the workplace. Many of the same themes prevail today, even though the working world and how it is organized have undergone dramatic changes in other respects.

 “I often think of the courage and solidarity of the early union pioneers as they undertook a noble cause under less than ideal circumstances,” Wagner said. “We could all use a booster shot of their spirit.”

“The discovery of the remains of 215 children at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School struck me with a profound sense of shock, sadness and shame,” said GSU general secretary Hugh Wagner. “This is a horrific reminder of the genocide against First Nations and Indigenous peoples led and coordinated by the Canadian state.”

“Canada has so much to answer for and the calls to action by First Nations leaders must be heeded,” Wagner said.

GSU general secretary Hugh Wagner is preparing a written brief to Saskatchewan’s Minister of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety regarding the status of supervisory employees under the Saskatchewan Employment Act (SEA).

“Following a two-year period of grace, on April 29, 2016 the SEA was amended to prohibit supervisory employees from being in the same bargaining unit as those employees they supervise. Thus ended 70 years of a sound feature of labour relations legislation in the province,” said Wagner. “This amendment was acted on by the Government of the day despite almost no one having asked for it, at least not on the record.”  

“Beginning with Saskatchewan’s first Trade Union Act in 1944 the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board (SLRB) had the ability to inquire into each application for union certification brought before it and determine whether supervisory employees should or shouldn’t be included in the same collective bargaining unit as the employees they were supervising. The SLRB had the ability and expertise to make a determination on the basis of the facts and dynamics of a particular situation,” Wagner said.

“Between 1944 and 2014 the SLRB included supervisory employees in “all employee bargaining units” in the vast number of cases and stable labour relations prevailed. However, on April 29, 2014 the Government of Saskatchewan made it mandatory that supervisory employees cannot be included in the same barging unit as those they supervise. Interestingly, the construction industry and registered nurses were exempted from this amendment to the Saskatchewan Employment Act,” said Wagner.

A measure of stability on the subject of supervisory employees was returned to the equation in January of 2017 when the SLRB ruled that the automatic exclusion of supervisory employees from the same bargaining unit as those they supervised did not apply to existing certified bargain units and would only apply to new certification applications. This decision, known as “Saskatoon Public Library” stood until reconsidered and reversed by the SLRB in February 2021 in a case involving the University of Saskatchewan and the Administrative and Supervisory Employees Association. As matters now stand the situation is not clear and judicial review is being pursued by a number of unions who argue, amongst other things, that the mandatory exclusion of supervisory employees under the SEA is a violation of the right to freedom of association protected under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Amidst the litigation on this subject, in mid-April the Minister of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety asked for submissions. GSU will be tendering a brief urging that the SEA be amended to return matters to the pre-2014 status quo.

“While there is much to criticize and improve on in the Saskatchewan Employment Act the carte blanche exclusion of supervisory employees stands as a particularly egregious feature of the legislation and it should be eliminated,” Wagner said. “GSU’s brief will propose that things be returned to normal.”

Advocating for labour legislation favourable to working people and their unions is part of GSU’s mission and mandate.

In March GSU filed an executive grievance with Richardson Pioneer over the denial of sick leave benefits to employees age 65 or older.

“The grievance has been making its way through the process and seemed to be headed for arbitration after a meeting with Company management earlier this month,” said GSU general secretary Hugh Wagner. “A last minute discussion with management resulted in a temporary and without prejudice resolution where union members aged 65 or older who require sick leave will be able to draw on the sick leave they had in the bank when they turned age 65.”

“The temporary resolution is intended to give both sides an opportunity to discuss and attempt to bargain a more permanent understanding when we head to the agreement renewal bargaining table in summer or early autumn,” Wagner said. “Without prejudice means that neither side is giving up their argument or weakening their legal position in the event the matter can’t be resolved and is sent to an arbitrator for determination.”

“The temporary resolution to this issue lasts until GSU and Richardson reach an agreement on the subject or December 31, 2021,” said Wagner. “Hopefully this helps affected members out of a bind. If they continue to experience problems I urge them to contact GSU.”

Further reports will be made when the parties begin agreement renewal bargaining later this year.

Recently a number of members have contacted GSU to inquire about their rights with respect to banked overtime. Apparently, the individuals were being pressured by local management to take time off instead of being paid out or waiting for a time more to the member’s liking.

It is important for members to remember that using banked overtime as time off work with pay is subject to mutual agreement. In other words, the employer can’t force an employee to take banked time. Furthermore, ahead of all else it is the employee’s right to insist that they be paid for baked overtime.

“Some employers have urged employees to take banked overtime to cover all or part of a layoff due to shut down,” said GSU staff representative Steve Torgerson. “Before accepting this approach employees should check into their eligibility for supplemental employment benefits under their GSU agreement since by taking banked time to delay the impact of the layoff they might actually be subsidizing the employer’s costs.”

If a member happens to be laid off they can also request a payout of banked overtime without affecting their EI claim.

Need clarification? Contact your GSU staff rep

We’re here to answer your questions, and no question is too small. Our services are provided to you as part of your union dues. There is no additional charge for assisting you.

GSU has a layoff organizer brochure available in hard copy or by email. Contact Steve Torgerson for your copy.