British Columbia Government and Service Employees' Union


The British Columbia Government and Service Employees' Union is a trade union in British Columbia, Canada which represents approximately 77,000 members. The union employs over 200 servicing and administrative staff in 12 area offices across the province and at the Burnaby head office. The current President of the BCGEU is Stephanie Smith. Smith was elected to this position in 2014. Previous Presidents were Darryl Walker, George Heyman and John T. Shields.

Structure and history

The union, which dates from 1919, is divided into 550 different bargaining units. About a third of the BCGEU membership work in the provincial public service. The rest work in the broader public sector, including community-based social services, healthcare, education and some crown agencies and authorities, and in the private sector, including credit unions, privatized highways maintenance companies and casinos.
The BCGEU first gained full bargaining rights under the BC Public Service Labour Relations Act in 1974. Since then the BCGEU has been involved in a number of precedent-setting legal cases, including BCGEU v. British Columbia on picketing rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Meiorin case on the test for discrimination.
The union is divided into a component structure based on occupational groupings. Each component has geographically based locals. This is the union's component structure:
Most members of BCGEU Components 1, 5, 6, 12 & 20 are covered by B.C.'s Public Service Pension Plan. This pension plan currently has equity of over $23 billion. Most members of the other components are covered by the Municipal Pension Plan, the College Pension Plan or the union's own targeted benefit pension plan.
As the nature of public sector employment has changed in recent decades in British Columbia, the number of BCGEU members who work directly for the government has declined while the number of BCGEU members doing work that has been devolved from the provincial government or contracted to the private sector has increased. The BCGEU is now the leading union organizing casino workers in the province, negotiating strong collective agreements.

Political involvement

Although the Union's constitution commits the union to not affiliating with any political party, the BCGEU has been a significant and long-term supporter of the BC New Democratic Party, contributing $157,770.64 in the year following the 2009 provincial election.

Staff

BCGEU staff are themselves unionized, being represented by the Union Workers' Union and MoveUP, the Movement of Union Professionals. Bargaining between the BCGEU and its servicing staff employees broke down in 2005, resulting in a multi-week strike.