Bad faith bargaining complaint to be filed against Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission

Union claims Commission wants to push process to arbitration

A bargaining in bad faith complaint will be filed against the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission (AGLC), according to the union representing the AGLC’s 600 employees.

Contract negotiations broke down between the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE), Local 050 and the AGLC on Aug. 11, 2011.

“The employer chose to end bargaining after one and a half days of a scheduled five-day bargaining session, stating the parties were too far apart and no further progress could be made without a mediator,” says AUPE negotiator Dale Perry. “From our perspective, we weren’t that far apart at all.”

The union says that AGLC negotiators refused to discuss monetary and non-monetary issues, as well as tabled articles and, when agreed by the union, subsequently withdrew their position.

“We believe the employer wants to push this process to arbitration as quickly as possible, as they think the Public Service Employee Relations Act protects them from having to bargain certain workplace rights,” Perry says. “But if they were genuinely interested in negotiating with us, as they have a legal obligation to do, we’d probably be very close to a tentative agreement today.”

Perry told Alberta newspaper The St. Albert Gazette that the primary issue in negotiations was wording on how external applicants would be hired when qualified internal employees can fulfill job requirement.

AUPE negotiators wanted job postings to specify new positions were available to applicants with the “requisite skills, knowledge and abilities,” Perry told the paper. He continued to say that the employer would only agree to the word “suitability” when referring to the attributes of a prospective employee.

The AGLC is not commenting on negotiations.

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