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[July 7, 2006 10:51 AM]
Both Bill 206 and its companion piece of legislation were proclaimed on June 30th, which means that both the OMERS Sponsors Corp. and the Administration Corp. have now been formally constituted. This will allow them to get on with the business of constructing the new OMERS, which has been stalled since the passage of third reading in February.
CUPEs representatives on the Sponsors Corp., Brian OKeefe, representing CUPE Ontario, and Ann Dembinski, representing Local 79, have already met on a number of occasions with the other employee representatives and the retiree on the Sponsors Corp. with a view to building a solid caucus on the employee side of the table in advance of a full meeting of the Sponsors Corp. The CUPE representatives will now be insisting on a full meeting of this corporation at the earliest possible date.
An enormous amount of work will need to be done over the next few years, particularly in relation to the Sponsors Corp., to get the new OMERS off the ground. Some of the more important issues to be dealt with include: developing an interim work plan for the Sponsors Corp., determining the relationship between the Sponsors Corp. and the Administration Corp., and determining the functions of the Sponsors Corp. that can be funded from the basic plan and drawing up bylaws for the Sponsors Corp. However, a major issue for CUPE will be deciding how to approach the whole issue of bargaining supplemental benefits at the local level, which has now been made possible by the new legislation.
Representatives of CUPE will be meeting with technical staff at OMERS and with an independent actuary over the next few weeks to determine how best to proceed with this issue. Following these meetings, a further determination will be made how best to process this issue with our locals.
CUPEs OMERS Reference Group, consisting of the chairs of key Division committees, representatives of large locals, appropriate staff representatives and representatives from the Division and National offices, continues to meet on a regular basis to deal with all of these issues. Watch for future bulletins in the future.
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