8/9/2019 COTAPSA 3 - Rod Sheppard Letter

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Greetings COTAPSA Board Members,

Thank you for inviting us to make this presentation. We value this opportunity and look forward

to developing a mutually beneficial relationship with your Association.

The Society is a Local of the IFPTE and we represent about 7000 members who work for thirteen

different employers in both the public and the private sectors. Our members perform a variety of

functions ranging from various disciplines of engineering to business analysts to energy traders to

financial analysts to computer programmers to auditors and managers and supervisors and

everything in between.

We look a lot like you and like you we started out as an association with a modest form of

recognition. In the late eighties our then employer tore up our informal agreement. As a result we

set out to formalize our contract by becoming a union. We did that with the help of our legal firm,

Cavalluzzo, Hayes, Shilton, Mcintyre & Cornish. Mary Cornish, a Senior Partner, is here with us

today.

A decade ago the government broke up Ontario Hydro into a variety of companies changing our

relationship dramatically. We had to adapt to a new reality. We set out to strengthen our union

and by 2003 we found a union that represented professionals and looked a lot like us. That was

the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE). Thats a long

name and so is the Society of Energy Professionals. Both names do not adequately reflect the true

nature of our members but few names of unions do. Its what we do and who we represent that

counts not what we call ourselves.

In 2004 it became obvious to us that we needed to grow our local union into other areas of the

economy and to increase the number of professionals that were unionized. Richard Long our staff

organizer then made contact with COTAPSA through your Executive Director. The issues facing

your membership have intensified since we first met. Today there are real, significant concernsamong the people you represent. Some of those concerns articulated include; wage freezes,downsizing, overtime, work/life balance, unfair evaluations, restructuring and a lack of influence

with the administration. We are here to propose a way of working together to strengthen your

association and address those concerns.

The Society has experienced the kind of turmoil that youre going through today. We have theexperience and substantial resources to tackle issues like legal recognition of the association;

bargaining good, solid agreements; setting up communication networks that persuade new people

to sign up and build a strong, representative, democratic organization.

We regard this newly reconstituted relationship as an opportunity to raise the profile, respect and

working conditions of the professionals that work for the City of Toronto. When we improveconditions for such a large group we help all professionals who are often benchmarked against

each other. Its like the ocean tide-it raises all boats when it comes in.

Sincerely,

Rod Sheppard

President,

IFPTE Local 160 (The Society)