This seemed like a longer negotiating session than usual! We spent our week in Victoria this time with continued progress on issues surrounding workplace flexibility and simplication/transparancy of the hiring process. We're also starting discussions that we are all underpaid and supporting the conclusions of the Mercer report with analysis of our own.

Normally we would meet every second week but the session in Richmond at the end of February was cancelled at the request of the employer due to conflicting managerial meetings, so I will spend one evening that week attending a CUPE local president's meeting attending a banquet in Victoria to meet with Adrian Dix and entourage of the NDP.

On March 13th we'll be back in Victoria for another week of bargaining and have already scheduled bargaining sessions in April and May to continue to build on the progress being made. During the March and April timeframe keep your ears open for word of regional meetings where I intend to go to as many as possible to discuss the state of negotiations directly with you and your co-workers. I'm currently scheduled to be in Prince George on the weekend of March 24th for their meeting.