MYTH: “The union can’t promise anything”
TRUTH: This just isn’t true. While terms of the local contract must be negotiated, joining CUPE means having strong representation if/when you need it, not having to face management alone, a collective voice at work and the power to win improvements to your job.
Joining a union means you can raise issues without fear of reprisal and have a set of rules that your employer must follow. Right now, for non-union employees, the employer gets to set the rules regardless of how they might affect the workers, and they can apply them unfairly or change them whenever they want.
When you join a union, you have “just cause” protection meaning you can’t be disciplined or terminated without just cause.
That’s a promise.
MYTH: “Unionizing will result in wage reductions or layoffs”
TRUTH: Wages don’t go down when workers organize a union. Unionized education workers have job security, in terms of seniority recognition, and layoff language including layoff and recall processes, that non-union education workers do not enjoy.
MYTH: “Unions force workers to go out on strike”
TRUTH: Unions negotiate for collective agreements – not strikes. No union wants a strike, but they are sometimes necessary when there is no other way to reach an agreement. To union members, a strike means sacrifice – for themselves and their families. Workers won’t go on strike unless the issues involved are so great they are worth the sacrifice.
There are legislative parameters in the Alberta Labour Relations Code that need to be met before workers can engage in job action and unions always conduct membership votes before taking strike action and a strike occurs only when it has been approved by a clear majority.
In collective bargaining, strikes are the exception rather than the rule. We repeat: the exception. About 97% of all union contracts are settled without a strike, but this fact never seems to make the headlines.
But unions also absolutely defend the right to strike. The right to withhold one’s labour in unison with fellow workers is crucial to maintaining a democratic society. As workers, we trade our labour in orderto provide for ourselves and our families. If we do not have the right to withdraw those services, we no longer have anything with which to negotiate – and not much of a democracy, either.
MYTH: “Unions protect bad employees or employees that should be fired”
TRUTH: No union contract requires an employer to keep a worker who is lazy, incompetent, or constantly absent or tardy.
What the union does is make sure dismissals are for “just cause” – for real reasons.
If there is a “bad” employee in your workplace, it is not the union that is protecting them, it is the employer.
MYTH: “You will pay dues and lose more than you gain.”
TRUTH: Dues are the resources that workers pool together to build strong campaigns and contracts that win improvements to wages, staffing, benefits and working conditions. Union dues fund the cost of bargaining and eventually the cost of enforcing the collective agreement through grievances.
No single worker could afford the cost of taking a grievance to arbitration. No worker could survive a strike or a lockout without strike pay.
All members of the union benefit from what is negotiated in their collective agreement and the professional representation provided by the union. These benefits are funded by the payment of union dues.
MYTH: “Switching to CUPE will come between us and management and hurt our positive relationship. We will lose our ability to negotiate one-on-one.”
TRUTH: In CUPE, there is no “union” separate from you and your co-workers. With a union you and your coworkers are united and stronger together. United, we have more power to win the changes that WE decide WE want to win together.
How well does one-on-one negotiations between a worker and their boss work anyway? Not usually well, on the big issues.
Negotiating one-on-one often lacks transparency and can perpetuate favoritism. This approach can create divisions among workers by fostering resentment due to unequal treatment.
When you are part of a union you and your coworkers negotiate together for better working conditions for everyone.
CUPE is committed to fostering positive labor relations and does not seek an adversarial relationship with management. The goal is to work collaboratively to ensure a fair and productive workplace for all employees. However, workers and employers have different and separate rights and interests – unions act to ensure workers rights and interests are protected.
MYTH: “If we switch to CUPE, we will lose everything we currently have in our Collective agreement”
TRUTH: Workers are protected by a law preventing the employer from making changes to employment conditions pending a union certification or during bargaining.
This law is called a ‘statutory freeze’ or ‘stat freeze’.
The ‘stat freeze’ exists so that employers cannot try to destabilize or erode employee support for the union
Employers sometimes try to divide workers by using the stat freeze – which is meant to benefit workers – as an excuse to stop providing wage increases, promotions, or other benefits as they did before workers unionized or blame unionizing for a delay. But the ‘freeze’ does not actually prevent or delay these types of improvements to working conditions.
The ‘stat freeze’ will keep the current provisions CBE workers have in the Collective Agreement status quo until a new Collective Agreement can be negotiated and ratified.