About

The goal of this website is to give our members access to information to improve their work lives, educate them on their rights, and to protect their jobs.

A little history...

The history of Local 975 really starts almost 70 years ago when workers in the gas plants in Toronto first organized. Later in the 1950s separate Locals were organized representing the Clerical Workers in Toronto, Operations Workers in Provincial Gas (Niagara) and both Clerical and Operational workers at Ottawa Gas.

Through the years, the different Locals (which were also with different Unions) went through many ups and downs but the leadership was diligent in working for the good of its members. They recognized that the best way to do this was to bring all workers at the Gas Company together. This culminated in 1979 with all locals splitting away from their International unions and creating of the National Union of Consumers Gas workers. In 1982 the NUIGW merged with the Energy and Chemical Workers Union of Canada and in 1992 the ECWU together with the Canadian Paperworkers Union and the Communications Workers of Canada merged and founded the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.

During this period, while the different locals remained as we merged with the ECWU and into the CEP, the leadership recognized that the best way to represent the membership was to work together. The four locals created a council to coordinate bargaining and other common issues and worked towards creating as much common ground as possible across the group. Finally in 1994, the last hurdle was crossed when the membership of all the locals passed motions to go to the Ontario Labour Relations Board to merge the bargaining units into one Unit to be known as CEP local 975. While this process was underway the Locals proceeded to merge operations and began operating as Local 975 (with five bargaining units) in June of 1994. At first the Company opposed this merger but eventually they recognized the resolve of the workers and in 1998 the collective agreements were combined.

No sooner had we accomplished this than the company started breaking up. First the split of Enbridge Home Services, followed by Commercial Services which further split into CustomerWorks with the balance of Commercial Services rejoining the Utility.

In addition both Home Services and CustomerWorks have been sold to Centrica and Accenture respectively.The net result is that Local 975 is now made up of three bargaining units. One representing workers at the Utility (Enbridge), another for the workers at Home Services (Direct Energy/Centrica), and one at Accenture Business Services (Accenture).

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