Our COLA increase will take place on the pay after next. The COLA increase is 47 cents. We have in our CBA that 45 cents is prepaid, therefore the soft float will increase by 2 cents.

Paul McCrea, Mike Jenkins, Alex Merwin, and I were invited to the Cliffs annual in person safety meeting in Cleveland last week. We learned some of their training programs and met quite a few people. It was a very positive experience.

We are having issues with pharmacies not with Green Shield. Some pharmacies are charging more for prescriptions and not the dispensing fees like what happened before. Currently Roulston's Pharmacy is the only one honouring the 50 cent agreement. If anyone knows otherwise, please let me know. You can speak to your pharmacist to see if they will change it, otherwise you may have to chance pharmacies.

Stelco did not sponsor the Norfolk County Fair this year, therefore there will be no discount tickets available.

Stelco has a new VP of Operations and a new Director of Safety. They will be out in the mills quite a bit. Please ensure you are wearing your proper PPE the mill requires and for the specific job you are doing.

Don't forget to check out our Local 8782 Facebook page for more information on what's new.

Rumour of the week......

“I heard there is an Indeed posting for operators, when will they hire for my department?”

Stelco has made a "hiring pool" for production. We are not on a hiring freeze. We will be monitoring the transfer list as the hiring is being done.

Contract/ESA questions of the week...

There has been a lot of questions on the company's policy of "The Note Program." Stelco is creating a draft written policy that indicates why an employee gets on the note program, what the expectations are, and how to get off the program.

Thanks,