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Courier unions go wheel to wheel
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When some messenger
companies voluntarily accredited with the Teamsters, it triggered a
bitter fight with another union, CUPW, trying to organize the industry.
Now some bike messengers find themselves represented by both.
Montreal Gazette, September 7, 2005
By Kazi Stastna
More than a year after a controversial deal between local courier
companies and the Teamsters union left messengers feeling bitter and
betrayed, employees at one of the city's biggest courier firms have
approved their first job contract with the union messengers originally
set out to accredit themselves.
Bike messengers and drivers at Sylco Express voted unanimously Thursday
to approve a collective agreement negotiated between the company and
the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. The two sides are to sign the
deal valid from 2004 to 2009, this week.
About 55 to 60 percent of Sylco's 40 messengers took part in the vote,
said Jack Valiquette, CUPW's director for Montreal.
Since Sylco, like many courier companies, has a sister company,
Messagerie du grand Montreal (MGM), which is already affiliated with
the Teamsters, employees are now in the odd position of being
represented by two unions.
About 85 per cent of the company's clients deal with Sylco and the rest
with MGM, Valiquette said, but the same messengers deliver for both.
"Sometimes you'll do 35 calls and three of them are MGM, so it's not
really a problem," a Sylco bike messenger, who did not want his name
published, said yesterday.
About 21 companies now have five-year collective agreements with the
Teamsters says Richard Charruau, president of Teamsters local 981.
They date to March 2004, when some of the biggest messenger companies
grouped under the Quebec Association of Couriers and Messengers,
pre-empted moves by CUPW to unionize their employees by voluntarily
accrediting themselves with the Teamsters union, which employers
considered the lesser of two evils.
At the time QA/Transor, which not a member of the courier association,
was the only company to allow a free vote on the CUPW application.
Employees there rejected a union by about 80 per cent.
In four cases before the Industrial Relations Board, CUPW is contesting
the way the voluntary Teamsters accreditation was carried out.
In the new Sylco contract, messengers' commission which for bike
couriers averages 60 per cent won't go up, but they will receive a
seven per cent increase - three per cent for drivers - during the
winter season. (Dec. 1 - Feb. 28) as well as a 2.25 per cent lump sum
at the end of the year. Drivers will also be guaranteed a minimum daily
rate of $60. Union dues have yet to be established but will be a
symbolic sum, Valiquette said.
There is a chance Sylco employees will be able to choose a single
union, but for now CUPW will work within the existing situation to
provide services to its newest members and work on acquiring more.
"We have no intention at stopping at Sylco. We will go after the
sector," Valiquette said.
The current Sylco deal comes at the end of a summer that showed promise
of rapprochement between the Teamsters and CUPW. The two sides met in
June at the urging of the Quebec Federation of Labour to discuss the
possibility of negotiating one collective agreement with the courier
association. The Teamsters rejected the idea.
"At this time discussions with the Teamsters are dead," Valiquette said.
Neither Sylco nor the Teamsters returned phone calls yesterday.
Messengers working for firms affiliated with the Teamsters say they
have received little in exchange for their $8 or so a week in union
dues.
Teamsters officials are rarely seen and have been slow to respond to
workers' queries, couriers complain.
"It's a joke. The union is not even there. You're paying $34 every
month for absolutely nothing," said Intelcom messenger Frederic
Paquette, 37, a 17-year veteran of the industry.
Charruau insists the union checks in regularly with the
membership.
Messengers working under the Teamster contracts say their earnings have
risen by roughly 3.5 per cent, although Charruau said the deal provides
for a five-per-cent increase overall.
From the union's perspective, the biggest victory has been getting
companies to agree to pay workers' compensation insurance - something
the industry opposed for decades.
There have been a few cosmetic changes (uniforms paid for by the
company for example), Paquette conceded, but none of that addresses the
fundamental problem facing messengers: the rising cost of living vs.
falling prices in the industry.
For him and other experienced colleagues, the union battle, which dates
back to 2002, was never about ticking off the bosses but about waking
them up to the need to address such issues.
"We don't need the union, we just need to get together and create a
certain amount of stability in the business," said Paquette, a father
of two.
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