To prepare for bargaining locals are being asked to
gather the necessary membership information by having their stewards
talk to their members and having their members fill out a
questionnaire. Based on the questionnaire responses, the locals, with
the assistance of their staff representatives, where necessary, will
prepare Bargaining Issues Summaries for central and bargaining unit
issues which will be presented at the Local Demand Setting meetings in
February.
Job canvasses is a fairly simple step-by-step process.
Follow the system and it is easy to run.
Step 1:
LEC/Unit Committee Planning Session (early January
2001)
This is a session where the LEC or Unit Committee
plans how it will run the job canvass. You will be assisted in this
task by your staff representative. Please contact your staff
representative to set up this meeting as early as possible so you will
have the maximum time left in January to conduct your survey.
If your local or unit is organized so that each
steward already has specific members assigned to him or her this part
is easy. If your stewards don't have specific members they are
responsible for, those assignments will have to be made. To assist you
in making the assignments, we've provided a STEWARD ASSIGNMENT
SHEET in each canvass kit. The assignment sheets should be used
for every steward so that you can keep track of where the
questionnaires are distributed and how many have come back.
To keep the workload reasonable, it is recommended
that your steward doesn't have much more than 10 members to canvass.
Where they have more, you may consider it advisable to solicit
volunteers to help administer the questionnaire. These volunteers
should be given specific assignments just like the stewards and the
assignments recorded on the Steward Assignment Sheets.
In work areas where you have no stewards, ask the
members to select one of their colleagues to administer the
questionnaire pointing out to them that if they don't participate,
their opinions will not be considered. These people too should have
specific members assigned and the assignments recorded on Steward
Assignment Sheets.
The LEC or Unit committee should make sure that every
member is assigned to someone, a steward or a volunteer, except for
those areas which simply didn't want to participate. Having the
assignments done in advance makes the next step much easier.
Step 2:
First Stewards' Meetings (January 2001)
(This step may be combined with Step 1)
This is a session where all the canvassers, stewards
and volunteers are brought together, given an explanation of the
purpose and procedure of the canvass, and given the canvass
assignments. The more canvassers you can get out to this session, the
lighter your workload will be, since someone will have to make a
personal explanation to any canvasser who misses the meeting. You may
be assisted in this task by your staff representative.
At this session, the canvassers should be given their
CANVASS KITS and you should walk them through the kits which contain:
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An explanation of demand setting and bargaining
and why the job canvass is important.
-
Canvasser Instruction sheets which review the
methodology to be used in administering the questionnaire and
provides information they can use to respond to members'
questions.
-
Sufficient copies of the OPS BARGAINING ISSUES
QUESTIONNAIRE for their members assigned to them together with
the fact sheets explaining the issue to the members.
-
A copy of their steward assignment sheet.
-
A copy of the sample questionnaire.
You should stress the points in the instruction sheets
which explain that it is important for canvassers to make a personal
verbal explanation to the members they are canvassing either
one-on-one or in small groups.
Also stressed should be the instructions that the
canvasser MUST FOLLOW UP with the members giving them only a short
time to complete the questionnaire. All questionnaires must be
completed and returned by a deadline you may select before the end of
January. If your local demand setting meeting is late in February, you
may be able to set the deadline in early February. Be sure to give
your LEC or unit committee enough time to summarize the results.
Members should be encouraged to complete the questionnaire immediately
or as soon as possible, in the workplace. Allowing members to delay or
to take the questionnaire home increases the likelihood that it will
be lost, not completed or not turned in.
Canvassers should be told not to wait for the members
to turn the questionnaires in but to go back to the members and
collect completed questionnaires personally.
Step 3:
First Canvassers' Report
This step can be done in two ways - either with a
meeting of canvassers or by assigning the LEC or Unit Committee
members to contact a specific group of canvassers to obtain a progress
report.
This should occur roughly one week after the Stewards'
meeting. Using the Steward Assignment Sheets you can determine whether
they've contacted all their assigned members by this time and how many
questionnaires they have got back.
Those who have made good progress can be praised for
their efforts and encouraged to complete their assignments by the
deadline. These people are good examples for those who have not
progressed as quickly. Where canvassers are making little or no
progress you should ask whether they need help completing their task,
reminding them that if their questionnaires are not returned by the
deadline, their members' opinions will not be considered. In extreme
cases, where you believe there is little likelihood that the assigned
canvasser will complete the task, you might wish to recruit another
canvasser.
Step 4:
Final Canvassers' Report
This step must occur on or before the deadline day for
the return of the questionnaires. A member of the LEC or Unit
Committee should contact each canvasser to collect his or her
completed questionnaires and Steward Assignment Sheet.
The Steward Assignment Sheets should be checked for
completion so that you have an easy way of determining what percentage
of assigned questionnaires each canvasser was able to collect. This is
important to you as an organizer for the next time you have to do a
job canvass.
Step 5:
Preparing your Bargaining Issues Summaries for
presentation at the
Local Demand Setting Meeting (February 2001)
You must complete this task in advance of your Local
Demand Setting Meeting. This step requires a meeting of the LEC or
Unit Committee to perform a simple analysis of each of the
questionnaires. You may contact your staff representative if you need
assistance in compiling the results. The materials sent to you contain
a separate kit for the local with the summary report forms and samples
illustrating how to fill out the summaries which will assist you in
compiling the data so it can be presented at the local demand setting
meeting. The questionnaires should be sorted and grouped together by
bargaining unit or central issues. You will need to make up to five
copies of the bargaining unit issue summary depending on the number of
bargaining units represented in your local. When you come to items
such as other issues or part-time, or unclassified, you will have to
use the enclosed lists which designate which issues are tentatively
central and which are for bargaining unit tables in order to separate
these issues into the correct summary report form. Some issues are
shared and may appear in both summaries. The final results are then
recorded on the OPS Bargaining Issues Local Summary Report Forms for
the bargaining unit or central tables with a separate form for each.
You are now ready to present your report to the local demand setting
meeting.
Step 6:
Reporting back to your members
It is important for your members to know that their
efforts and opinions really count. The results of the job canvass
should be reported, naming the canvassers, their work area, and the
percentage of questionnaires returned. This is simple recognition for
their hard work. They should receive praise and a thank you from the
local.
Besides being reported upon at the local demand
setting meeting, the Bargaining Issues Summaries should either be
posted or distributed so that each member can see what happened to his
or her personal questionnaire. It is important that we are open and
above-board with the members in this process. After all, it is their
bargaining rights, their collective agreement and their lives which
will be affected by this next round of bargaining.
