Joint Labour - Management meetings

Local 37 members participate in a number of local joint labour management (LM) meetings throughout our membership. In addition, I and my staff also participate in a number of bi-monthly joint LM meetings with senior leaders in many of the NB Power companies, and we also have a "High Level" LM meeting on a regular basis with the NB Power Vice Presidents.

These joint Labour Management meetings are all about being proactive in dealing with issues. Why wait until a small problem "blows up" into a big problem? These meetings allow us to discuss items of mutual concern in a non-adversarial forum. It also encourages communication and hopefully a better understanding of each other's role. Labour Management meetings are not a substitute for the grievance procedure or contract negotiations, but can contribute to making both more effective.

Not all of our locations do have Labour Management committees, but in the locations that do, I think they demonstrate that we are responsible, constructive and able to discuss issues in a proactive fashion.

If you have a LM committee in your work location, I encourage you to participate by discussing issues with the committee members, or even by volunteering to help out or to join the committee. If your location doesn't have a regular Labour Management meeting, or other means of raising issues in a proactive fashion, and you think that one would be helpful, why not give the union office a call? We'll see if we can get something going.

(Photo, left to right: Shop Steward Gaetan Cormier and Assistant Business Manager Gary Munn discuss an issue at the NB Power Generation Labour Management meeting)