ASSOCIATION OF POSTAL OFFICIALS OF CANADA
COMMUNIQUÉ TO BRANCHES
RE: VOTING PROTOCOL
NOVEMBER 21 , 2014
The Corporation and the Association signed a Memorandum of Agreement on November 13, 2014. As part of the Memorandum, the Association has undertaken to forward the proposed changes to the Collective Agreement to our members for ratification. This will involve each member completing a ballot and returning it to your Branch Office.
The National Office has mandated a professional printing company to prepare and mail out the ballots along with a self-addressed pre-paid return envelope. Each return envelope will be numbered for the purpose of controlling the number of outstanding issued ballots. To maintain absolute confidentiality only the National Office / printing company will know what number on the envelope each member is assigned.
Each Branch will be provided the series of numbers corresponding to the members belonging to your Branch.
The mailing will occur on Friday, December 5, 2014. It is anticipated that delivery of the ballots/envelopes will occur during the week of December 8, 2014. Our members have been advised that should they not receive their ballot/envelope by Friday, December 12, 2014, that they should immediately contact their Branch President or designate. It will be incumbent on the Branch to contact Guy Dubois or Darrin Kohut at the National Office so that the printing company can provide an alternate ballot/envelope.
Once ballots have been received (by hand or mail) in your Branch Office, you must store them for safe keeping (do not open) until the deadline. The deadline has been set as noon Monday, December 22, 2014 (Eastern Standard Time). Ballots received after this deadline cannot be counted.
It is required that the Branch President or designate and two volunteer scrutineers will complete the counting of the ballots. After the deadline to vote, each Branch President or designate will place the envelopes in numerical order to ensure that they correspond to the series of numbers provided by the National Office.
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Any envelope with a number not in the series provided must be set aside and deemed spoiled immediately. Should the Branch President or designate discover two or more envelopes with the same number, both envelopes must be set aside and deemed spoiled immediately.
The Branch President or designate in the presence of the two volunteer scrutineers shall perform the following:
confirm that the envelope numbers correspond to the numbers provided by the National Office;
open each envelope received prior to the deadline and remove the ballot;
keep the ballots separate from the envelopes;
place the envelopes in one pile and the ballots in another pile; and
Once all ballots are counted, the Branch President or designate shall provide the results to the National Office by telephone and send the official recording form by electronic mail no later than 5:00 pm Monday, December 22, 2014 (Eastern Standard Time).
The National Office shall post the results on our website (www.apoc-aopc.com) shortly thereafter.
As well, the National Office will provide you with notification and direction to destroy the ballots and envelopes.
The National Office requires you to provide ASAP, your contact information and alternatively, the name and contact information of your designate, if you will not be present on Monday December 22, 2014. This information must be sent to dubois@apoc-aopc.com and kohut@apoc-aopc.com
