| 06-30-2021

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Local Dispatch (21/06/30) - Cruel Summer

Comrades and friends,

As reported last week , our National Exec and CPC have reached a tentative agreement to extend our current arbitration-imposed contract by two years. To be clear, this proposal is worth less than the paper it is printed on unless our membership votes to approve it. You decide.

At this point, our local has not received any further info on the finer details of the proposal but we do know a virtual vote will be taking place sometime between August 3 - September 3. To vote, you must be a member in good standing and have updated all of your member information. As we receive more info, and the specific voting day for our local, we will share on all our official channels. So much for a quieter summer...

Our local was hoping to use the typically uneventful summer weeks ahead to experiment with an online voting system. We heard your feedback from the last local election, and in an effort to make local voting easier for more members, our Communications committee will be holding a newsletter renaming contest via online voting. Even if you don't care what the newsletter is called, your participation will help us explore a potential solution to involve more of our members in the democratic process. The more people voting, the better idea we will have if this is an appropriate method we should consider officially implementing in our local. The only other update is a registration reminder for our sole summer GMM taking place on Sunday, July 11, 6pm, which will feature any new details we receive about the contract extension.


In Solidarity,





 



Online voting experiment to rename newsletter 

Even though our last local election had a near historical voter turnout, we heard from many of our members that the lack of locations and times made it too inconvenient to vote. As a local our goal should always be to involve as many of our members as possible in the function of our union -- our Executive took your feedback from the last election and greenlighted a low-stakes test run of an online voting system. 

To help with this experiment, the Communications committee volunteered to run a renaming election for our newsletter, The InsideOut. If the online test proves to be secure and accessible, a report will be submitted to a future General Membership Meeting, along with bylaw change recommendations to consider updating our voting system.

If you’d like to see our elections system made more convenient, please participate in this online voting test! Each of the four steps to this process are outlined as follows:

1) Newsletter Name Submissions: Deadline July 7

Like or leave our current newsletter name, the name should only be changed through the democratic participation of our members.

To suggest a new name for our newsletter, please email the name and a quick 100 word synopsis of why you chose it to: communications730@gmail.com. For those attached to the current newsletter name, fear not, The InsideOut will automatically be added as one of the candidates to the final voting list. Name submissions close on July 7.

2) Vote Registration: July 14 to July 21

After the submissions deadline, the Communications committee will review the names and post a candidate shortlist to the website, local dispatch, and our official Facebook page. This is where the real online vote test-run kicks in. In order to participate in the vote, you will then need to register via an online form, which will also be provided on the website closer to the date. Members will have from July 14 to 21 to register for the vote using this form.

3) The Vote: July 25 - August 1

After registration closes on July 21, the Elections committee will help the Communications committee vet all registrants to confirm they are members in good standing in our local. 

All confirmed registrants will receive their own private, secure, link to cast their newsletter name-change vote online via Election Buddy (electionbuddy.com) The vote will be open from July 25 to August 1. 

4) Election Feedback and Winner Announcement: August 4

The winner will be announced on August 4 via the local dispatch, website, and our official Facebook page. Following the contest winner announcement, we will be collecting feedback from you on how you felt about the election process and if it is something we should consider using for future local Executive elections and referendums.

Throughout this process we’ll keep you updated via our website, weekly local dispatches, and official Facebook page. If you have any questions, please reach out to us at: communications730@gmail.com

Each step of this process will be announced separately so members will know how to participate.



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(Virtual) GMM: Sunday, July 11, 2021, 6:00pm

As per the direction given by our CUPW National Executive, locals can hold GMMs via video conference as long as quorum is met and all participants have registered with all the required information by the specified deadline. For our full virtual GMM guidelines, please see the accompanying document below the GMM notice.

Register: www.cupw730.ca/home/calendar or LINK

Deadline: Friday, July 9, 2021, 1pm. Registrations are confirmed after the deadline.

Those registering after the deadline will not be admitted. Please respect the time and efforts of those administering these meetings. For extenuating circumstances, or help registering, please contact: union@cupwedm.net

Full meeting notice: link



Ongoing Reminder: Local Office Access

To stay aligned with the federal health guidelines affecting our members, our office remains locked and available by appointment only. We are trying to conduct all meetings with members over the phone or via video conferencing. Exemptions can be made for unique circumstances. In either case, please call (780) 423-9000 to arrange an appointment with the appropriate officer. We are extremely busy in the office trying to put out a thousand different fires, so please leave a message if you’re unable to catch us on the phone.

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