Bulletin
Plexiglass – A Classic Bait-and-Switch Story
May 14, 2020
To: All MoveUP ICBC members
Yesterday, members of our union forwarded a story that has been posted on the ICBC Hub titled “Prioritizing wellness and safety during a global pandemic.” As I was reading the article, I was rendered speechless.
When I got to the end, however, and they compared the scenario to a sequence from Ocean’s Eleven, it suddenly dawned on me that what I had just read was your classic bait-and-switch story, just like Ocean’s Eleven.
I couldn’t believe what I was reading because we had worked incredibly hard with ICBC’s labour relations department on a number of initiatives specifically around the COVID-19 pandemic. I have no doubt that the managers profiled in the ICBC version of the story, did do the things they claim and I am grateful for their work, however, just like any good bait-and-switch story, there is always far more going on than is first recognized.
Let’s rewind this story back to March 9, the week when COVID-19 issues facing our members were moving very fast. Every day, we were hearing that people were at risk – road tests were being cancelled, the threat to public safety and health was increasing, and your union was moving quickly to respond. Even in the midst of bargaining, we diverted our efforts to do rapid assessments of our members who were most at-risk.
By the following week, ICBC was starting to formulate a plan to transition staff to work from home. We were doing all we could to help facilitate this transition, including agreeing to waive certain provisions of the collective agreement to help speed up the de-densification of offices. That was the good news in this story, but we believed it still left the Driver Licensing Offices (DLOs) at the greatest risk and with what felt like the slowest reactions..
We were talking to ICBC’s Employee Relations daily, even hourly, as more and more concerns and worries were brought to our attention. But, without question, it was the DLOs that were our greatest concern as they were seeing more and more people coming in.
Every day, we insisted that ICBC implement ideas to protect staff – ideas that came directly from you, that were shared with DLOs across the province. It began to resemble an episode of MacGyver with staff cobbling together strips of duct tape to mark out the floors for physical distancing. Some staff were left to provide their own cleaning supplies when none were available. Others were told that cleaning supplies were locked in a closet, where they were safe from getting overused by staff (not kidding).
Just like a scene out of Office Space, ICBC told staff they were no longer permitted to use tape on the floor because it might damage the carpet (still not kidding).
We continued to press for action with senior leadership at ICBC. We asked every day for plexiglass to protect staff at DLOs and at reception desks around the province. (At times it felt like we were in a scene from Erin Brockovich, but without the water on the table). We continually pointed out that grocery stores, government liquor stores, banks and other businesses had this figured out almost immediately and yet ICBC appeared incapable of moving quickly.
The responses we received ranged from: ‘we don’t think it will be effective’ to ‘we don’t think it’s the answer’ to ‘we are looking at it but we don’t have any idea when or if we will do it.’
Faced with what often felt like an unmoving force, we changed our tactics to get our members what they needed. We activated our worksite health and safety committees, and the provincial health and safety committee, to make this issue a priority, along with increased cleaning. (A good sequel, for a change, like Ocean’s Twelve).
We called on ICBC to do exposure control plans and to look at each worksite individually since we know each location had unique setups and concerns. We engaged our job stewards across the province to ensure we were hearing from their worksites. And we kept up the pressure with Employee Relations. Looking back, it reminds me of many episodes of Star Trek, where our ‘enterprising crew,’ with expertise in multiple areas, kept going under what felt like poor odds for success (I know. That one is a bit of a groaner.)
It was only then, after everybody’s commitment to this issue, did ICBC finally show us signs they were willing to move towards installing plexiglass barriers. It wasn’t until April 23 that we finally received word that all our efforts would be rewarded. After six weeks of hard work from your union representatives, officers, job stewards, health and safety committees, and members we were finally informed that plexiglass would be coming to DLOs across the province. And it wasn’t until May 12 that we were informed they will be at all reception desks, but not until close to June 12. In ‘COVID years’ that’s the equivalent of the slow migration of mammoths in Ice Age.
I know at this point this is starting to sound like the The NeverEnding Story but I am finally coming to our conclusion. Let me flashback one more time to Ocean’s Eleven. The one big difference between our ending and the movie is, instead of standing in front of the Bellagio fountain contemplating going our separate ways, as a team, we are sticking together.
We are here to make sure all of us are safe, and that ICBC meets their health and safety obligations for all their employees.
And the next time they’d like to revisit the past, we’re more than happy to go Back to the Future to make sure that history isn’t rewritten and the full story, not just one part, is told
(This is not the end).
In solidarity,
Annette Toth
Vice-President