CASTLEGAR, B.C. –Unionized workers at two branches of StellerVista Credit Union have served 72-hour strike notice with the employer and will be in legal strike position as of April 28. 

The 11 USW members at StellerVista Credit Union are employed at the credit union’s Castlegar and Slocan Park branches.

According to the union, at issue is the “employer’s insistence on concessions that would freeze wages and claw back hard-won provisions of their collective agreement that have been in place for decades.”

‘Attack on Our Members’

“This is an attack on our members at the Castlegar and Slocan Park branches, pure and simple,” Veronica Tanner, USW Local 1-405 financial secretary and lead negotiator, said in a statement. “After more than 11 months of bargaining with this employer, they still insist on the members agreeing to no wage increases, increasing the work week, rolling back overtime pay, watering down bargaining unit protection language – essentially, they want to gut our collective agreement. The membership isn’t going to stand for it.”

While workers at both locations have long been USW members, there has been a collective bargaining relationship at both of the credit unions that merged to form StellerVista CU for decades. 

The branches in Castlegar were among the first credit unions in B.C. to be organized, first gaining a collective agreement in 1975, USW Local 1-405 said in a statement. 

‘Not Acceptable’

“It’s not acceptable to our membership or to the community that a well-established, community credit union in the Kootenays tries to force concessions and lower wages on its workers,” said Jeff Bromley, USW Wood Council Chair and staff representative assigned to the local union, said in a statement. “This won’t be an attack on 11 members at the credit union, it will be an attack on the 4,000 USW members across the East and West Kootenays. We’ll be out on the line, if need be, in force.”