Maybe these workers should take a look at what private enterprise pays their employees and what kind of benefits, vacation pay, etc. that private enterprise offers. Just a thought. I know that city workers are not working for private enterprise but they need to understand what others make in order to see how good they have it.

I couldn’t agree more.If they aren’t clawing back your wages like what has been done elsewhere… stop being spoiled children stomping your feet and asking for more! I realize that Mayor and Council received a 31% raise. I realize they spend money on Greeds and not Needs. Does that mean you have to lower yourselves to their level and screw the taxpayers out of more money? And you wonder why the public resents you and will not support you?

I couldn’t agree more.If they aren’t clawing back your wages like what has been done elsewhere… stop being spoiled children stomping your feet and asking for more! I realize that Mayor and Council received a 31% raise. I realize they spend money on Greeds and not Needs. Does that mean you have to lower yourselves to their level and screw the taxpayers out of more money? And you wonder why the public resents you and will not support you?

I am sure the outside workers would like to get what the private sector equipment operators get. The guys I know in the mines and in the bush are make 20 to 30 thousand more a year. When they stop jacking up ICBC, hydro, etc. then they can stop looking for more.

bornandbred states; “I know that city workers are not working for private enterprise but they need to understand what others make in order to see how good they have it.”

Or maybe we should just equalize everyone, replace all City union workers with cheap – no benefits private enterprise contract workers. Then everyone gets paid just enough to buy kraft dinner instead of steak, rent an apartment instead of buy a house, and have their high school graduate children work at MacDonalds instead of going to university because there is not enough money to send them to post secondary… yeah that make perfect sense!

At one time unions did good for the average working person but they have now over-reached to the point that in the private sector only around 15% are represented by a union.

They drove the manufacturing sector in Canada away because wages and benefits went up while productivity and accountability went down. Read some of the arbitration cases on the LRB site and it is all but impossible to get rid of even the worst worker once they get behind the skirts of the union. In BC the forest companies managed to compensate by investing in technology that required fewer people.

Now Unifor is talking about a big push into the service sector, great the pimpley faced kid asking “would you like fries with that” will be making 25 bucks an hour(strangely enough the new price for a burger and fries)

The reason that the unions have managed to keep a firm grasp on the public sector is that productivity is a word seldom if ever mentioned and if more money is needed it just means digging a little deeper into the taxpayers pocket.

Studies have shown that some public sector workers called in sick 10 days more a year than the private sector and in what can only be termed a miracle cure the absentee rate dropped almost in line when the employer started to place calls to workers who had called in sick.

Maybe the cupe members were hoping for the same 30% hike in compensation that mayor and council voted themselves as one of their first moves after getting elected? LOL.

IMO the problem at city hall isn’t with the front line workers it is with the high priced management and with the hypocrites around council who say it is time to tighten the belt while at the same time taking a big raise and jacking up travel expenses attending events across the country. Did any of Council actually cut back their travel even a little?

“Or maybe we should just equalize everyone, replace all City union workers with cheap – no benefits private enterprise contract workers. Then everyone gets paid just enough to buy kraft dinner instead of steak, rent an apartment instead of buy a house, and have their high school graduate children work at MacDonalds instead of going to university because there is not enough money to send them to post secondary… yeah that make perfect sense!”

Where on earth do you get your information from? Do you honestly think no one but the union has benefits?

Getting rid of high paid union jobs will never be enough for corporations and businesses, particularly those that trade on the open market.

For those companies, soaring profit margins and rising share prices for their investors will never be enough! The push for manufacturing offshore may have started with the high cost of union labour in North America (not just Canada), but it has perpetuated to the point of immoral and unethical practice!

Target, Walmart, Zellers, and a number of other large corporations outsource their garment manufacturing to third world countries like Bangladesh where workers are paid 26 cents a day. Greedy corporations are now exploiting the human condition to the point of “slave labour” and that is what can and will happen in a world without an organization that protects workers rights!

Big government, Big Unions and Big Business need to find a balance, because we can see what happens when business has it’s way…what is happening in Bangladesh is immoral and unethical… but who cares about that when there is money to be made by business right lonesome?

No worries, cheap labour is being brought into Canada now! What business want to pay a $10.75 per hour minimum wage when the Temporary Foreign Worker Program is available to them at an even cheaper labour rate! Just as Tim Hortons, KFC, MacDonalds, Dairy Queen, etc.

The following is taken from an article on this web site on June 18, 2008:

“Prince George, B.C. – The City of Prince George’s inside and outside workers have ratified a tentative agreement that will give them increases of 3% in each of the next 5 years.”

“The package, if approved by City Council, would be retroactive to January 1st of this year.”

blog/view/9716/10/city+workers+say+yes+to+tentative+agreement?id=&st=9720

I tried doing some searches on this web site and the internet to see if Prince George City Council also approved this tentative agreement but I could not find any information about this. Does anyone recall if Prince George City Council also approved this tentative agreement with its inside and outside workers, and was the last contract that the City of Prince George signed with its inside and outside workers a 5 year deal with a wage increase of 3% in each of these 5 years?

Yes the last contract was for 5 years with 3% per year.

For everyone thinking they should take zero. Here is a list of recent contracts.

Aramark Canada (Rogers Arena) and Unite-Here local 40

9% over 3 years, December 12, 2011 to December 11, 2014

Compass Group Canada and United Steelworkers Union local 2009

6% over 3 years, December 6, 2010 to December 5, 2013

LifeLabs and BCGSEU

3% over 3 years, January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2014

Philips Ledalite and CAW local 114

18% over 3 years, June 1, 2011 to May 31, 2014

Gibraltar Mines and CAW local 3018

11% over 4 years, June 1, 2012 to May 31, 2016

Brown Bros. Ford and IAMAW

6% over 3 years, April 1, 2012 to March 31, 2015

G4S Cash Solutions and CAW local 114

6% over 3 years, February 1, 2012 to January 31, 2015

BCAA and COPE local 378

6% over 3 years, October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2014

Canadian Pacific Railway and IBEW

15% over 5 years, January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2017

Fortis BC Energy and COPE local 378

6% over 3 years, April 1, 2012 to March 31, 2015

Canadian National Railway and IBEW

12% over 4 years, January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2016

Regional and Community Colleges and FPSE

4% over 2 years, April 1, 2012 to March 31, 2014

BCIT and BCGSEU (Vocational Instructors)

4% over 2 years, April 1, 2012 to March 31, 2014

University of Victoria and CUPE (Sessional Instructors)

3.38% over 2 years, May 1, 2012 to April 30, 2014

Health Employers’ Association of BC and Community Bargaining Association

3% over 2 years, April 1, 2012 to March 31, 2014

Okanagan Regional Library and CUPE local 1123

4.5%over 3 years, January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2013

City of Coquitlam and International Association of Firefighters

6% over 2 years, January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2011

City of Port Alberni and CUPE local 118

9.75% over 4 years, January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2013

City of Richmond and CUPE local 718

6.75% over 4 years, January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2015

City of Vancouver and CUPE local 391 (Library Board)

6.75% over 4 years, January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2015

WorkSafeBC and Compensation Employees’ Union

4% over 2 years, April 1, 2012 to March 31, 2014

Legal Services Society of BC and BCGSEU

6% over 3 years, April 1, 2012 to March 31, 2015

15% increase in wages during the worst economic downturn in nearly a century….more proof that the union has lost all touch with reality.

I know that if I was sitting across the table I would tell them the city is dead serious about holding the line on property taxes so any increase in wages during the first two years of the contract would be funded completely from the equipment replacement budget.

The equipment replacement would be moved to the bottomless abyss known as “future projects unfunded” Your move Ms. Bigalow…tks gus for bringing the clause in the contract that shows how close they watch this line item;)

Couple of things Smooth…notice that most of the contracts you posted are funded from the public purse and the unions that think the gravy train has no end. Also looking at these in isolation means nothing- what did their previous contract give them? are they coming off a term with little or no increases or even concessions.

When is the last time that the City of PG CUPE workers went a calendar year without an increase in wages or benefits? IMO that time has come.

City manager makes more than premier
Approx 8 percent increase for managers of city last year

Oops, forgot to mention how cheap it is to do garment manufacturing business in Bangladesh because there are no expensive work place safety regulations that most unions demand on behalf of their members.

Here let me help you lonesome with the long history of factory fires and building collapses in the Bangladesh garment manufacturing industry. Sure gotta hand it to those corporations and businesses, they sure know how to make a buck off the backs of human death and suffering!

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/06/bangladeshi-union-campaign-london-fashion

Thank God the Bangladeshi workers are starting to unionize, after all who is looking after their lives, safety and best interests… hey lonesome?

And the plight of garment workers in Bangladesh is related to CUPE in PG how?

That is like comparing the physical attributes of Mahatma Gandhi(from India but close enough) to that of Jabba the Hut(Janet?)!

The need for union is clear in the former but has clearly jumped the shark in the latter.

lonesome states; “They (unions) drove the manufacturing sector in Canada away because wages and benefits went up while productivity and accountability went down.” Sept. 6, 2013, 3:34 pm.

Just pointing out to you why businesses and corporations left Canada (North America), high cost of union labour to begin with, now it’s to make money off the lives and suffering of foreign country workers.

You say unions DROVE those businesses away from Canada (North America) I say GREED attracted those businesses to cheap foreign “slave markets”!

Now these greedy companies and corporations are bringing those cheap foreign workers here to take advantage of lower wages under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program!

Hey maybe the City will fire all the CUPE workers and use the Temporary Foreign Worker Program for cheap inside – outside labour? In your simple Ayn Rand world this would seem to be the ideal solution lonesome :)

Like there no greed on the other side of the fence.

Exhibit A: $1,200,000.00 -2012 cost to the Vancouver school district for unlimited free massages for teachers. Yes it is all about the kids RIGHT. Sad state of affairs when something like this makes it all the way to the negotiating table.

There is still plenty of manufacturing in the country where employees share in the companies successes but also pain in leaner times. A union organizer would be shown the door so fast he would have to use all his sick days to recover from the whiplash.

They should have asked for orthodontist coverage…$1,200,000.00 might have fixed Susan Lampert’s overbite.

I will take the inappropriate use of funds for teacher massages over the deaths of thousands of workers from fires and building collapses!

I cite the extent of human suffering and agony because of employer (business and corporate) indifference and mistreatment, and you counter with union pampered messages???

Have a nice weekend lonesome, hope you get your priorities straight.

The average increase across the BC province was at least 2% for city municipal workers. The city asking for less than that seems weird… PG is by no means in dire straights and is better off than a lot of other cities in the province.

lonesome sparrow –

You do realize that is because many private industry started paying equal or more with better benefits to union positions right?

At least unions tend to promote loyalty to a company.

And I might be rusty on my numbers from when I did courses involving this, but I do recall its higher than a lowly 15% unless it dropped a lot in a few years.

And of course I’m sure that while not every union worker is going to be “Johnny on the spot” the vast majority of union workers go to work and work the full day.

I don’t know where you get this magical image that all union workers are lazy? Unless your silly enough to believe the constant management’s negative PR campaigns from various companies about it.

Some of them are certainly bad, but its the 1% of 1% that are terrible. The vast majority are good, and I challenge you to find any company anywhere where they don’t or haven’t had a bad worker at some time or other… Also if a bad worker is laid off at a non-union job they have a TON of legal recourse they can do, its just not typically presented to them like a union does.

The concept of a union protecting the worst worker is absurd. Any employeer with a union having just cause to fire a worker doesn’t get too much grief from the union, they just make sure that its actual just cause and not someone power tripping.

Studies have shown that 83% of the numbers coming from ‘studies’ are wrong. I challenge you to present that study, what is its margin of error, what area, where, and when was it done. Does it have relevance?

Probably not, as for sick days taken. I know that in private sectors people can get fired summarily for being sick and often come into work while sick (despite every single employeer having a clear cut policy of people NOT coming into work when they are sick).

I can remember being a supervisor at a union job talking to a newbie who NEVER turned down a shift call in EVER (working 6+ days a week, high school etc non stop, working the odd 12 hour shift, and so forth). Why? Because at their previous job some low brow bully told them they would be fired if they missed two call in’s in a row or if they were home sick more than a couple times in the whole year. I laughed and told them that no, here in fact you can turn down a call in or be sick if you are sick.

Did some people abuse sick time from time to time? Yeah I’m pretty sure they did, it wasn’t a lot of people, and it wasn’t very often, but sometimes I was left to wonder.

But somehow you are telling me that everyone who isn’t in a union is the perfect employee, who never skips a day, never takes a personal moment at work?

Naive, just naive. If anything I see far more people slacking off, coming in unfit to work, or just blowing off work entirely than I ever did with unions.

Why? Because they hate their employeer, they feel screwed over, and it is reflected in their work. Union employees? The exact opposite, they love working, and do an honest job.

As for the manufacturing sector… you are saying we should all be working for pennies an hour 12-16 hours a day, side by side with little children in slave labour conditions? Because oh wow that is where some of those jobs went… Overseas where they can abuse people.

Smooth – Interesting numbers

Lonesome – What does the last contract matter? Its done its over, it was negotiated in good faith and was quite reasonable for its time.

Do you feel that if the city workers took -3% a year for the last 5 years that they would be looking at anything better? No you’d be like “rawr, they took -3% a year last time they should take -5% a year this time”.

(for the record I’m typing as I’m reading comments)

lonesome – YOU brought up the fact that manufacturing went elsewhere… So deal with it… Its not because they couldn’t make profit here… its because they could make 10 million times more profit elsewhere.

People – As for the temporary foreign worker program… it scares me…

they are often using falsified qualifications to get jobs they shouldn’t be anywhere near, and once they are in they become a danger to the people doing those jobs with them. One wonders how they get busted with false credentials and are still allowed to work, and more are brought in with the same issues… Shouldn’t the companies be doing some kind of effective background check?

Lonesome – Vancouver = Prince George, not only do we have the same population, location, and everything else. So using one of the largest cities in Canada with a population of at least 2.5 million to compare to “BC’s Northern Capital” of around 100,000 makes sense. Complete sense.

people1 – in case you missed it-

“The need for union is clear in the former but has clearly jumped the shark in the latter. “

————————————–

Informed

As I have had the distinct pleasure of hearing a group of city workers standing around talking about work will have to read the rest of your post after I quit laughing after reading….. “At least unions tend to promote loyalty to a company.”

Lonesome.

Most of the contracts posted were not from the public purse. Many were, but less than half. I am imagining that is all you see though as you tend to read and post with a healthy dose of confirmation bias.

Anyways, the point was to show that both sides have been getting raises, both public and private.

You did eh? Wow I’ve never gone into a non-union work site and found people talking.

I have to wonder, was it 10ish, noonish, or 2ish…? Nah couldn’t be that they were on a break, lunch, or a break. Lazy union workers having breaks and lunch times…

Not like the good old honest non union and exempt employees who don’t have two breaks and a lunch in an eight hour day.

Shucks, when I worked in a union I used to work through breaks all the time, often worked lunch too. In fact many people did, and do.

I am teacher. I probably work through 90% of my lunches, and certainly never sit down to eat.

Bias- you mean like intentionally leaving out one of the biggest private sector union contracts in the area who gave up things like stat and floating holidays and accepted substantially lower hourly rates for entry level jobs among other concessions or posting only those who got an increase.

With a minimum amount of research could post just as many contracts that at best kept status quo like all the net zero ones that have been on the news the last while.

Like I said getting a goose egg for a couple of years(management and union) will not hurt them that bad, could even use the net zero model and find a saving somewhere else to free up the bucks.

BTW informed heard the workers in a local pub when we stopped in for a bite and was no mistaking exactly what was being said.

Informed; What union utopia did you work in? You’re throwing around all this “Rah rah let’s go union” dialogue, where is it that you encountered this harmonic, job loving union nirvana? I can tell you that in 20+ years of working in various union environments that overall most of the workers were there to do a job, did not give a fig one way or the other about the company they worked for (unless the job was threatened, then it was “the evil empire”).
I have been out of a union environment for about 5 years, the level of commitment to the job & company where I work is nothing like I ever encountered in the unionized work force. Here the concept of job performance=company performance=job security is lost on no one. Add to the fact that we are rewarded on our abilities & capabilities, advancement & training is based on desire not the date you started.

People#1: “I will take the inappropriate use of funds for teacher massages over the deaths of thousands of workers from fires and building collapses!

I cite the extent of human suffering and agony because of employer (business and corporate) indifference and mistreatment, and you counter with union pampered messages???”

I can only assume the CUPE and other union members never shop at the big box stores, right? ;-)

axman: “Where on earth do you get your information from? Do you honestly think no one but the union has benefits?”

You’ll have to forgive People#1. People who have been on the public teat for so long don’t know much about the outside world.

There are bad workers everywhere. Look at the Senator scandals. We have one at work that hasn’t put in a full week since they were hired, likes to talk A LOT and they are still working…go figure. It’s BS so the rest of us are starting to do the same.

Looking at the City wages, it looks like the City management and firefighters are the winners. I’d like to have a job that I work 4 days a week…sleep during two of those days…Please don’t give me the sob story that we need them and they are indispensable and it’s dangerous work… We’ve all made career choices we just don’t get as well paid as both of those groups. Some of the jobs at the city are paid too much…janitor, cashiers and life guards (job postings are always posted online) but some of the jobs are paid less than what the private sector would pay.

Does anyone know what the management to cupe worker ratio is? I don’t know for sure but it looks like the City’s very top heavy.

The ratio does seem top heavy at the city with management + assistants to worker ratios.

lonesone – show me what contract signed anywhere in canada where any stat holidays were surrendered up… Legally the only way you can change hours of work from 40 / week without paying overtime is to offer something considered better… like the nurses working schedule.

Companies have no choice but to obey the stat days its legally required from the government, every company in canada better be following that or they are in for a whole world of hurt. And some companies pay double time on stats (city does for all of them I believe), some are 1.5 for some 2 for others… And I know of private companies who pay 3+ on stats.

So don’t try and make up nonsense that they somehow bargained out of having a few stat days… Its not something up for debate…

To be funny the CoPG made a point of mentioning that they gave the city workers a new stat in family day… But I’m completely sure that it was something they have absolutely no control over and just wanted to be like oh look, the government added a stat to the year for BC, look how generous we are to follow the law and let you have it.

Right Johnny, people’s a fool. I mean like really no one other than union workers have any benefits… Oh unless your talking trades, or mines, or oil fields, or full time fast food workers, etc…

Good points Informed, as for your point with lonesome about legally changing hours of work from 40 / week without paying overtime… the company would have to apply for a “modified work schedule” and have it approved (Employment Standards Act).

As for Johnny Belt, I don’t mind his digs, he is not entirely a sack of hammers when he sticks to subjects he is knowledgeable in.

Jeez don’t get your panties all in a knot, although only recognized as an official stat in other parts of the country I believe if you check the steelworkers gave up Boxing Day in addition to the personal floating holiday. The LRB site where I normally look at contracts is in the process of moving to a new site which is in 404 status so cannot post a link. Regardless it has been a holiday for a long time and not a small concession.

detoe43 – as for the union utopia where you would find informed during working hours…dollars to donuts City of PG, despite having posted the other day that a “friend” works there yea in the same way it is always a “friend” in every letter to dear Abby.

Given your posts p1 the question JB asked about shopping at big box stores was a valid one and it would be hypocritical of you if your shadow crossed the threshold of one of those stores or if the “Made In” label was a deciding factor for a purchase in any store, big box or otherwise.

Speaking of daytime jobs, two members of council should be prohibited from voting in all matters pertaining to the union contracts because of conflicts of interest, Everitt for obvious reasons and Skakun after the amount of money his union poured into his legal defense bills.

“The ratio does seem top heavy at the city with management + assistants to worker ratios.”

The ratio changes with the type of operation. The profile of a mill operation is totally different from a municipal inside worker operation, an outside municipal worker operation, a doctor’s office, a construction company, etc.

Well, I can see the crab in the bucket syndrome is alive and ever present in a lot of the opinion 250 commentators. It’s pretty pathetic how indoctrinated people have become. Not to mention angry and bitter.

What keeps you down is YOU and if trying to tear other people down makes you feel better about your own miserable existence, then I feel sorry for you. You’re looking at this all from the wrong perspective. You literally meet the definition of biting the hand that feeds you. Which just makes you a wounded and confused animal.

This truly is the land of the plenty and if you look around you at the end of the day and see you have nothing, you have nobody to blame but yourself. Your anger, jealously and bitterness is misplaced.