IFPTE Bargaining Academy –Western Canada Edition

From May 7 to May 28, IFPTE Locals and other professional organizations were given a four-part training seminar modeled after the Non-Profit Employees Union (NPEU/IFPTE Local 70) “Bargaining Academy”. Participants from TEAM/IFPTE Local 161, WAPSO/IFPTE Local 162, SCMMA/IFPTE Local 222, and the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals logged onto Zoom once a week to learn essentials like proper note taking, effective strategies and tactics and membership engagement.

Course facilitators Bill Fitzpatrick and Dave Sauer of IFPTE also allowed for extensive information sharing between participants. Labour education has always had the powerful component of story-telling to educate each other. Every Local present passed their first contract decades ago but was searching for improved negotiation knowledge. The styles of bargaining every participant described from Interest Based to Offensive to Arbitrated Settlements was available for discussion.

“As we [SCMMA Local 222] are currently in the process of bargaining our second contract with IFPTE’s help, it was great to have the training available in real time. We may not be able to deploy every tactic or strategy outlined in the course right away, but every contract is a building block for the next one.

The members who participated found the information easy to understand and the dialogue between Locals was certainly helpful.”–Jackie Morley, president of SCMMA Local 222. Much credit and many thanks to NPEU/IFPTE Local 70 and IFPTE staff, Chris Langford, for all their hard work on the course material and presentation. IFPTE staff Bill Fitzpatrick and Dave Sauer took some liberties with the content to Canadianize-it for northern eyes. It is very likely more “Bargaining Academies” will spring up around the country.