Do Local4070 Members pay the salaries of those on temporary assignment with CUPE National?
No, for long term assignments, members doing assignments go on LOA as per 11-9.01 which is unpaid by WestJet or by CUPE4070.  CUPE National bears the cost of these assignments.  Short term assignments (such as committee meeting at CUPE National level) would be billed back to CUPE National by the Secretary Treasurer.
 
 
Do stewards make hundreds of dollars per day of meetings?
No, steward pay is outlined in the bylaws and pay for each meeting (currently 1.69 block hours for the 1st one in a calendar day) encompasses work that is usually performed at other times.  For example, a steward would need to prep for the meeting, brief with the Base VP, brief with the member, debrief with the member after the meeting (investigative or disciplinary), compile and edit the meeting notes and debrief with the Base VP if necessary.  Work of each meetings can span over a number of days. 
 
The newly ratified bylaws (which still have to be approved by CUPE National) add additional responsibility of entering the information into the database and standardize the meeting pay at $65 per meeting (and all of its relevant work, outlined in the preceding paragraph) with a maximum of $325 per day.  This new amount of $65 is a reduction in pay to WS Stewards doing 1 meeting per day, who currently would make $85.78 for each first meeting in a day.
 
The reason the maximum was adopted is because that is relatively close to the amount the membership pays for 1 day of Union Flight Release for committee or executive work at WestJet to a capped-out non-CM member.  4.5 credit hours at $50.76 with added cost of benefits and WSP that the employer bills the union, is $306.
 
The union tries to use stewards and steward pay only when absolutely necessary and when the base VP (or another executive) is unable to take the meeting themselves.  The executive team is very conscious of steward costs, which are driven by the employer’s agenda, and the executive will always try to take the meetings themselves, as it is of no extra cost to the membership. 
 
Union flight release and steward pay cannot be combined as that goes against the union’s principles of not profiting from union work.
 
Rumor: This Local is in Financial Ruin
False, we have grown in our net worth, as presented at the GMM in November, in the last fiscal year.
 
The executive team has a concern with the bylaws and 142 positions as well as other costs outlined therein which could potentially exceed annual revenues from dues.  In essence, current bylaws force us to elect people with zero budget and that is not fair to those members.
 
The executive team has tried to reduce CUPE per diems in the last bylaw amendment which did not pass.  Hopefully, with further amendments in 2023, the local can be right-sized to match the dues collected with the level of expected spending contained within the bylaws.