To all proud IT Group members,
As indicated in our last IT Bytes #14, we informed the members that we are heading to arbitration. We are scheduled to hold our arbitration hearing on December 5th, 2023, if we don’t come to an agreement through mediation.
Your bargaining team met with the Treasury Board Secretariat, and our mediator, Tracey O’Brien on October 3 to 6. Through these negotiations, we feel we have made significant progress in our efforts that could lead to an agreement. While there is officially no new written offer on the table at this time, we did receive a verbal offer about what a deal might look like.
It is because of this progress that we have arranged to meet again, for further mediation, on October 17 to 19. There is a significant amount of work to do, in order to get to a deal that TBS and the IT Group can both accept, but we are committed to doing all that we can to get there. If we succeed in reaching a tentative agreement at mediation, we would then send it to the membership for a vote. If we are unable to reach an agreement, then we would proceed with our scheduled arbitration hearing.
It has been a long road to get to this point, but the end is in sight. I’d like to thank the membership for their patience and support throughout this process.
In Solidarity,
Robert Scott
IT Group Bargaining Officer