Pay equity fight settled on one front, but Bell still needs agreement with CEP

Bell Canada has jumped one hurdle in its long battle over pay equity for female staff with its multi-million dollar settlement with one of its unions. But it still has to reach an agreement with another, more militant labour group. Last week, the telco solved a problem that has been brewing for more than a decade when it signed a deal with the Canadian Telecommunications Employees’ Association (CTEA). The settlement will see the telco make $128 million in cash payments to eligible employees, based on wage classification and years of service. In addition, the company will make $50 million worth of adjustments to the pension funds of the workers. The CTEA and Bell have also formed a joint committee that will work at maintaining equity in the phone company. A ratification vote is being held from September 19-23. CTEA president Brenda Knight says it will be the second time this year the workers have had to vote. "We’ve actually just gone through ratification in June, our collective agreement was up," she tells Network Letter. "So our members are on top of that process." But while one door has closed, another remains open. The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP), which represents telephone operators, has not signed an agreement and is stepping up its publicity campaign against Bell. The telco and the CEP have held talks over recent months, escalating since BCE Inc.’s annual general meeting last May. The exploratory discussions have not resolved the issue. "There was no formal break-off of those talks, no formal commitment that they would continue," CEP president Brian Payne explains to Network Letter. "They made a proposal which we didn’t find satisfactory and things just kind of stalled." His colleague Joel Carr says it is up to Bell to move next. "They know if they want to sit down seriously and have the capacity or the willingness to settle this, we’d be more than happy to sit down. But we left it with them to call us."The union has referred the case to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (NL, Nov. 20/00). Those hearings resume in Ottawa this week. In the meantime, the CEP took its case to the public by holding demonstrations at various Bell offices in Ontario and Quebec. It also handed out leaflets at last weekend’s Bell Canadian Open. An attempt by the Angus Glen golf club, host of the tournament, to bar the protesters failed late last week, when the Ontario Superior Court refused to issue an injunction. Carr stresses that it was the golf course owners, not Bell itself, that sought to limit the demonstration. There is some confusion about the numbers of people affected in both cases. Knight tells Network Letter her group represents "well over 23,000" people, the same figure used in a CTEA news release of August 27. But when the deal was announced September 4, the CTEA said it represented "approximately 29,000 people." Bell says it made an agreement with "the union representing 96 per cent of its employees involved in the issue." The CEP disputes that it speaks for only four per cent of the affected workforce. Its news release maintains that "in fact, 5,000 members or 30 per cent of employees involved in this issue are represented by the CEP." But Payne tells Network Letter "about 4,000" CEP members are involved. "There’s been some distorted numbers put out there by Bell when they talk about 96 per cent of them being represented by the CTEA," he states. "But the real numbers, CEP probably has about 400 left working but about 4,000 that have a significant pay equity claim."Bell Canada did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Pay equity fight settled on one front, but Bell still needs agreement with CEP

News | 09/10/2002 4:00 am EDT

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