WEDNESDAY
S I N C E
MAY 29, 2013
1 8 9 5 RSS takes third at provincials
Vol. 118, Issue 83
105
$
Page 9
INCLUDING G.S.T.
PROUDLY SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF ROSSLAND, WARFIELD, TRAIL, MONTROSE, FRUITVALE & SALMO
FEEDING THE FLOWER BEDS
SCHOOL DISTRICT 20
Support workers vote for strike action BY VALERIE ROSSI Times Staff
School District 20 employees who keep Greater Trail schools clean, safe and inclusive have voted to strike after contract negotiations for a higher wage hit a wall last month. Eighty-nine per cent of Canadian Union of Public Employees' 230 local members voted in favour of strike action early this month and await further direction from CUPE Local 1285 board president Cherryl MacLeod. She is in the midst of connecting with School District 20's support workers to explain what was decided at a meeting in Vancouver last week when all 57 CUPE presidents met to plot a strategy moving forward. “I'm not saying we're going to do something in Castlegar and Trail by the end of June that will be disruptive,” she told the Times. “It might be an information line, it might be a study session. There are all kinds of things we could do.” CUPE represents school bus drivers, custodians, clericals, maintenance, tech and trades, education assistance, childcare and child and
youth care workers and aboriginaleducation employees. The average wage for a CUPE K-12 worker is $24,000 a year, according to a CUPE press release. The local is looking to send a message, following contract negotiations that didn't result in what the union calls “job security” or a pay increase – a raise that hasn't occurred since 2009. A similar story is being heard across the province. BC Public School Employers' Association, the bargaining arm for boards of education, met with union representatives from the 57 unions banded together over the winter and into the spring. More than half of these locals have now taken local strike votes with the rest expected to be completed by the end of June. “I'm happy that the strike votes are going well but I'm just as frustrated,” said MacLeod. “We don't want anything unreasonable. We don't want anything more than other public sector groups have achieved and we don't understand why we're being singled out and told, 'There is no money for you.'” See MONEY, Page 3
Police suspend search for missing Trail man BY SHERI REGNIER Times Staff
GUY BERTRAND PHOTO
Dave Dunn was out early on Tuesday morning spreading compost on Trail’s numerous flower beds to prepare them for the blooming season ahead.
The search for a Trail man, presumed drowned at Little Wilson Lake near New Denver, was suspended on Monday evening. Michael Lorne Guthrie, a 32-yearold Trail resident, was identified in an RCMP press release on Tuesday, as the person reported missing after the canoe he was fishing in capsized on Saturday. Search and Rescue along with RCMP personnel searched the scene initially without success. The RCMP underwater recovery team and RCMP helicopter were on scene early Monday but unable to locate Guthrie after searching the
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last location he was seen. “The RCMP are in the process of arranging to have sonar equipment brought to the scene for use by the divers,” said Kootenay Boundary RCMP Sergeant Darryl Little in the release. “It is hopeful the search will resume in the next day or two.” Local Search and Rescue will continue to search the shoreline until the sonar equipment arrives. Little Wilson Lake is located in high-alpine and very cold this time of year. It is described as approximately 63 acres in size with an average depth of 39 feet, with areas over 80 feet in depth.
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