City, CUPE Prepare For Contract Talks
Saturday, January 12, 2013 @ 5:11 AM
Prince George, B.C. – Representatives of the City of Prince George and its inside and outside workers are preparing for the preliminaries in advance of the start of negotiations on a new collective agreement. The old contracts expired at the end of December.
Contrary to whatever else you may have read in other media recently, City Communications Assistant Lori Tidsbury confirms that the management negotiating team will be comprised of Acting City Manager Kathleen Soltis, who has previous experience in contract negotiations, Superintendent of Operations Bill Gaal, Rae-Ann Emery, Manager of Human Resources and Labour Relations, Sandra Caffrey, a Manager in Human Resources, Andy Beesley, Recreational Facilities Manager, and lawyer Adriana Wills of Harris and Company in Vancouver, whom Tisbury says will act as team spokesperson.
The president of CUPE Local 1048 representing inside workers, Janet Bigelow, says the 1048 negotiators include herself, First Vice-president David Wieler, Chief Shop Steward Chrystal Lloyd and alternate Matt Hood. Bigelow says negotiators for Local 399, outside workers, include President Gary Campbell, and Shop Stewards Chris Stern, Kevin Devereux and Shirley Halliday.
Bigelow says the parties will sit down Friday, January 18th to set protocol and set future bargaining dates. She says she was surprised to see a comment that Soltis expects the first round of negotiations to take place at the end of the month. “No dates have been set,” says Bigelow, “and saying that negotiations are starting at the end of the month isn’t correct because we haven’t even had the discussion. They have no way of knowing what we’ll propose.”
Bigelow also questions the city bringing in a Vancouver lawyer at whatever cost when past negotiations without outside assistance have resulted in settlements without any labour disruptions. She also says Soltis has proven herself “a capable person at the bargaining table.” Lawyer Wills will be paid by the hour, but Bigelow won’t speculate on what that hourly fee might be, but places no credence in speculative figures contained in a newspaper column this week. Calls to Soltis and Emery seeking details of the hourly rate were not returned. We did receive an email from Communications Manager Chris Bone saying Soltis and Mayor Shari Green are the two city representatives to contact regarding questions concerning the collective bargaining process.
In calling for talks to begin the City says the negotiations could be “challenging”.
Recently-signed BC municipal contracts provide these settlements:
Jan 10, 2013 City of Port Moody and CUPE Local 825 sign 4-year deal. Wage increases of 1.75, 1.25, 1.75 and 2%. Retroactive to Jan 1/12. Covers 275 workers.
Nov 30, 2012 District of Elkford and CUPE 3004 sign 4-year deal. Modest wage increases in each year and sick leave improvements. Retroactive to March 2012. (No number of employees specified)
Aug 28, 2012 City of New Westminster and CUPE 387 ratify 4-year agreement. Wage increases of 1.25, 1.75, 1.75 and 2%. Retroactive to Jan 1/12. Covers 625 workers.
Jan 13, 2012 City of Nanaimo and CUPE 401 sign 3-year deal. Wage increases of 2% in each year. 750 workers.
Comments
What!? No knee-jerk comments from the neo-cons as why the working person does not deserve a living wage? hmmmmm! Well let me start then. If city council can have 30% raises; then CUPE deserves???
All I need to know is when do my taxes go up again to pay for the wage increases. I would like to budget accordingly.
Mooseheart. It is not likely that city workers will get a 30% raise like council. Any modest pay increases will not likely raise your taxes much. If you budget for a 25 to 50 cent increase you should be safe.
Council could give be their 30% and distribute it to the workers.
Let’s see, that’s about 3 cents per City employee.
be = back
when you look at what others are getting the range for a wage increase would be between 1-2% over the course of the new deal but with all the threats of “contacting out” during the discussion of the core review, wouldn’t job security be the big issue? Or maybe that was the strategy of the new mayor and council to scare the employees into thinking they might lose their job so they would take a 0% hike. will be interesting.
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