Soooo, how about somebody post the highlights from the new offer here..
Would be nice for the employers to see what bs we are facing. In particular paid days off, wording of the ‘no layoffs’ clause, manning requirements and the bans on contracting out wording….

Back to normal tomorrow,, so that means my street wont get done for another, 3 or 4 weeks. Thats normal here in the bowl.

contractor, if that is what you are then you can put up your own picket line if you don’t like the offer. Paid sick days have been there since early 70’s and before. If the city is being managed properly, by mayor and council, then there should be no need for layoffs and they should only use contractors when needed then lay them off.
At least the union employees are try to get this settled it seems.
hay a nice day

Mayor Green needs more money to waste on surveys, trips to china, and improvements to the library(which i wonder how many people use these days with ereaders internet etc). Hope this is settled soon so i can continue to see groups of 4 city workers take 4 hours to fix a stop sign then go sit at timmis for an hour.

If they have had enough, then why not stay on strike? Why pick a weekend day which most CUPE members do not work anyways to picket? You know what essential services are, go nuts.

Oh right, will cost you $, but it is not about the money…

Have a nice day

Hmmmmmm, omgreally just wondering how you knew it was an hour at timmis. you must of been on lunch eh.

Thank you city employees for trying to offer our mayor and council a new proposal. To me this demonstrates a mature step to resolving your issues, i wish you luck in dealing with the mean green team.
She has got to go PG……. PLEASE,

omgreally goes out at night and knocks the stop sign down so (he/she) has something to watch the next day.

I am sure the one guy that the city has repairing signs would like the help in this weather. Unless the sign post needs to be welded by a ticketed welder there would only be 1 person repairing it.

dontknow – they must know where you live and leave your street to the very end. Unless there is back to back snow falls it only takes 6 to 8 days to get all the residential graded. If you want it done fast maybe the city should double the snow levy.

Bentely,,, BS on the 6 to 8 days,, I do live on, a 1 block st. that I figure they forget about. But still a poor excuse.

The city used to claim they could clean up the city in 4-5 days. I guess that was in the old days before everyone with a contracted grader said good-bye to the city, far more lucrative snow removal contracts to be had out there.

We had about a foot overnight (snow started late last evening) and after I finished my driveway this morning around 9:30, I went out to grab some stuff and the arterials and main roads had already been taken care of. At that time my street hadn’t been touched.

Since getting back, I’ve had to clean the load of snow from the front of my driveway because my residential street had one pass done. I’m not sure when, but it would’ve been within the last couple of hours. I suspect they will finish cleaning it up later today.

Just posting this to show that snow can be removed quickly if a city makes it a priority.

Well, there is always that last resort. Call in the army. :)

The workers have already went a Year at 0%, that the Union is once again trying their best to solve this shows who is sincere….and who just wants to Make Her own political Statement. Mayor Green and Beth James constant disrespect of the Staff and their Holier then Thou attitude is whats lead to this. My guess……the Union has presented something where they make concessions…..and the Green Team of 100,000$ folks will turn it down AGAIN!

It gets a little sickening listening to someone comparing utilities and infrastructure in our nations capital to prince George. Does it really surprise anyone that more money is spent on infrastructure where our federal politicians reside? I mean really, we arent’ that blind you know.

So finning and most other heavy duty shops charge out at 160$ in shop and over 200$ an hour for field work. Very expensive and there are a lot of machines the city has that there aren’t dealers for anywhere near. Plus you have to wait for them to get to the job can be up to a few weeks in busy season even for a simple fix. Where I work it’s normally a week to two wait. Even for simple jobs as we are very very busy dealership

Lame argument Huh. I can pretty much guarantee you that an MP from Nova Scotia, Manitoba or BC could care less how snow in my residential area is cleared. Contrary to popular belief, they don’t even find it. That’s covered by the city of Ottawa via property taxes. Taxes, which I will add, that are quite a bit higher than what you pay in PG.

There is no reason whatsoever that PG couldn’t have similar service levels if they funded it properly, improved their processes and made it a priority. That’s the reality of the situation but you can choose to believe whatever you like.

Well, there is always that last resort. Call in the army. :)

=======================

LOL. Where is that militia unit Kinsley wanted so bad when you need it?

LOL! You completely missed the point of Huh’s comment too funny!

City was expecting CAGW. wonder how that electric dream car is doing?

Posted by: seamut City was expecting CAGW. wonder how that electric dream car is doing?

It is sitting in the works yard covered in snow. lol

Whattttt one day strike???? And on a weekend???? Come onnnn… get some balls and stay out on strike

So called strike on Saturday means most people will not lose a days pay. Then everyone back to work.

Union made a new offer to the City, however no one knows what it is, nor do we know what the original Union demands were.

We could all make much informed opinions if we knew what the Union is looking for and what the City is offering, however we don’t have this info.

It would be nice if they all agreed to a five year contract, no increase in wages or benefits, for both Union and Management, plus 10% reduction in both Union and Management, Staff, over the five years through attrition, pension bridging, and buy outs.

This would bring some semblance of fiscal responsibility to the process, and give the taxpayers of this City a bit of a break. We could then concentrate on reigning in City spending on all sorts of goofy projects.

Wishful thinking on my part.

Posted by: CrysBaron on December 15 2013 10:33 AM
“The workers have already went a Year at 0%, that the Union is once again trying their best to solve this shows who is sincere”

Actually shows who got caught with their pants down, on the tv interview they didn’t even know it was their turn and the city was waiting for their counter offer.
Usually it goes offer, counter offer, offer, vote, counter offer, offer, vote, counter offer, etc. The CUPE leadership dropped the ball. Most people in favour of the union strike on this site think they would be happy with a 1,1,2 – we have to wait and see but but I bet that isn’t their counter offer – like a good poker player you can’t show all your cards, you raise and hope the other person folds

“We could all make much informed opinions if we knew what the Union is looking for and what the City is offering, however we don’t have this info”

Why bother? All it will do is increase the moaning, whining, crying and insulting aimed at city employees and all the other union workers on the planet from all the experts that post here.

The article says garbage pickup will be on schedule. Does anyone know if the garbage pickup that was missed (where the garbage trucks didn’t get to because the drivers were afraid they would have got stuck in the snow) will be made up or will we need to bring it to the dump ourselves? And if we bring it there ourselves will we need to bring money?

“It would be nice if they all agreed to a five year contract, no increase in wages or benefits, for both Union and Management, plus 10% reduction in both Union and Management, Staff, over the five years through attrition, pension bridging, and buy outs”

I could possibly see a wage freeze but the blanket 10% reduction is staff makes no sense IMHO. Usually when that happens, they end up cutting 10% in every area instead of looking at where resources are needed. They do that because it’s easy and they don’t really know how or where to allocate their resources to.

Maybe some areas actually need funding increases (road repair and snow removal for example) whereas others could be cut without much impact to direct services. The question is whether there is anyone at city hall competent enough to figure that out. The union also shouldn’t be co-managing that sort of stuff. It’s a city decision, but unfortunately they haven’t really shown an ability to make good decisions when it comes to managing things in an effective manner.

If staff cuts are required, I agree that it’s best to do it through attrition or buyouts if that is possible. Buyouts aren’t usually cheap though and there is often a tendency to over cut, which results in the need to hire people back at a later date.

The city really needs to get a handle on the service levels it wants too provide, what those cost and how they can go about delivering them. I don’t think that has yet been deteremined. It seems like they want the amenities and services of a big city with the budget of a small city.

Whoever said that all residential gets cleaned up after 6-8 days is lucky.

During the 5 “major” snowfalls last year we had the snow removed once on our street and that was well after the new year. After 2 weeks since the previous snowfall, one shouldn’t have to call the city trying to get the street plowed or sanded because it is a giant skating rink.

As for the 4 workers standing around while 1 works, I saw a great example of that last week before the huge dump of snow. The corner of my street has massive potholes that they keep just cold patching instead of paving over. Anyhow I was out in the yard with the kid before dinner and up to this corner rolls a big city truck and two small white city pickups. 5 guys total jump out, take a look at the potholes and only 2 of the guys picked up shovels and did any work. 3 guys just stood there the entire time. This was at 5:30-6:05 so one would assume overtime was involved. The best part was the next day the holes were back as the road is quite busy and all the patching stuff had been pulled out of the potholes by people driving over it. So there were 3 city trucks, 5 city employees to do a job that lasted less than 24 hrs.

imo
One day strike on saturday means least amount of disruption for taxpayers and still make a point.

at least I hope thats why

The city and the union should have a rep sitting at the table ready to discuss any offer made.I dont know about the union but the city hired a Vancouver lawyer at a high rate,it might be nice if he/she earned the money.

Dragon: “Why bother? All it will do is increase the moaning, whining, crying and insulting aimed at city employees and all the other union workers on the planet from all the experts that post here. “

Why is that any different from all the whining, moaning, and insulting comments directed at the mayor and the City? Or do those not count?

It’s different because the mayor is supposed to provide leadership…a good leader doesn’t feel the need to shoot their own soldiers.

99.9% of the unionized workers did not have reduction in pay with yesterday’s so call strike – and neither did both presidents. As for “after Xmas” noone will lose stat. pay and does Bigelow have holidays planned for that timeframe?
Better yet the coffers of the union did not suffer. The union have staff rep.& lawyers if needed who help in negotiations (check their C/A – lucrative) facilitated by union dues.
The street still has not been plowed.

The members, at least the ones I know, didn’t even know what I was talking about when I asked them what the new offer was to management from their bargaining committee. They had no idea there was anything new going on. But then again…they are the ones that voted to accept the offer (not strike) and have no desire to be CUPE National and CUPE BC’s sacrificial lambs.

Just want to add a HUGE THANKYOU to the guys and gals clearing our streets and making it safer for us all, that is a heck of a lot of snow to clear. And to those who are calling the city and bellyaching about a lack of snow removal, shut up! You’re usually talking to a lady at the service center who has nothing to do with snow removal, who, along with the grader operators et al, have been working without a contract for how long? Our street has yet to be done and we are dealing with it, and we are not complaining, we’ve lived here for years and understand the frustration city workers face every winter with people getting angry with them over snow removal.

I’m pretty sure the street cleaning would go a lot quicker if people would not leave their vehicles parked on the streets as well.

If you have a problem with how streets are cleaned stop complaint and go to a city hall meeting and voice it there. The employees are told where to go by managers and such they have no say on when and which roads get cleaned. That is up to the managers. Same goes for to many employees standing around not doing anything. Most commonly they need that many people there. You just happen to drive by when they aren’t all needed but once again their manager sent them there. They are just doing what they are told. There is also three employees typically for every one manager so there can be a lot of ppl telling you where and what to do. Trim the fat. I personally want more workers doing the repairs and maintenance than more managers telling them what to do. !!!

I see by the poll on this site, almost 70% support the CUPE in their strike action. That must really upset the righty tighty management types ;-)

There’s street cleaning going on? Where?

As for the polls, People#1, don’t forget they are easily manipulated on this site, and I wouldn’t be surprised in this case especially.

Original post on December 15 2013 12:33 AM – had to share twice.

Almost every single person who has ever looked for a job in their lives, goes job hunting, sees a job they’d like to bid on. They submit their resume, have their job interviews and when offered the job they accept.

It just happens that you ended up working where you do, and the city union workers ended up working where they do. Simple as that people!!

If you are ever so upset about how much they make at the city, and those of you who keep saying ‘if you don’t like your job, or if you don’t think you make enough money then quit’ (referring to city workers) if you’re that upset about how much they make, then the next time there is an opening at city hall bid on a job.

We all make choices. I’d like all of you who are bashing the city workers to state where you work. I’d then like the city union workers to stand over your shoulder and watch you ‘work’. How long your breaks are. Do you sneak home when you shouldn’t? Do you make personal calls when you shouldn’t?

You can’t tell me that all of you city worker bashers haven’t wasted quite a bit of YOUR employers time taking about how much the union makes, or what the mayor is up to. With all that’s going on in the media about the entire labour dispute and trips to China etc., and the new city manager….. you’d certainly burn through your coffee or lunch break pretty quick discussing all of it. Theft of time?

So again, please state where you work, and I’m sure there would be plenty of opportunity for others to see just how ‘hard of workers’ you all are! How reliable, how dedicated, and put in an entire full shift without taking even an extra minute on your 10 minute break!!

Yeah right!!

I don’t think that anyone actually believes that this Country would be better off without Unions. Management would kick the s..t out of employee’s if there was not some kind of protection.

That doesn’t mean that the Unions can go after better wages, and benefits, ad infinitum, there has to be a limit.

People should keep in mind that every worker at the City of Prince George, whether it be Union or Management, are paid for by tax dollars. So while the argument on the surface is between Union and Management, its the taxpayers that foot the bill.

So again I say, this issue to me is more about peoples ability to pay all the costs at City Hall, both for labour, management, roads, sewers, storm, snow removal, police, fire dept, etc; etc; etc;.

Its time to bite the bullet, and quit asking for more.

If people, either Management or the Union think that they have the support of the people of Prince George on this issue, or on any of the increases in taxes and services that we have got lately, they have another think coming. People are sick and tired of paying, paying, paying.

Put a five year wage and spending freeze on a referendum at the next election, and see what kind of a result you will get.

Let see if Management and the Union have the gonads to accept the will of the people on these issues.

You’re right Palopu, let the people footing the bill decide. I would gladly step into one of these jobs at the current rate of pay.

Check it out weaksauce. The postings will obviously change, but maybe there is something there that would interest you.

http://princegeorge.ca/careers/Pages/JobPostings.aspx

Thanks brah,
Apperantly I need to bone up on my coordinating skills… Interesting that CUPE can’t just fill these positions with their we enormous pool of ‘skilled workers’.

Wow. 4 jobs for the city managers office. I wonder if she’s as bad a *itch as she comes off as ?

All of the jobs in the link above would pay %55,000.00 per year and up. Plus benefits. Some would be in the high $70,s or more.

Let the good times roll.

There were skilled workers in those jobs until they were so called “Laid Off” only to have their jobs re posted,these same skilled workers we appreciated & respected by past City Managers & Mayors.

Wonder if the sales of SUV’s have increased?

middle finger states; “Wow. 4 jobs for the city managers office. I wonder if she’s as bad a *itch as she comes off as ?”

Naw, it’s probably “empire building” by Beth James. The City Manager’s Office will become something akin to the PMO in Ottawa!

“It would be nice if they all agreed to a five year contract, no increase in wages or benefits, for both Union and Management, plus 10% reduction in both Union and Management, Staff, over the five years through attrition, pension bridging, and buy outs.” Palopu…..Your not supposed to drink the water IN the Bong! What color is the Sun on your Planet that you think that’s ever even REMOTLEY close to being reasonable!? Wow some folks are really out to lunch! Beth James must GO(first time city manager)….Shari Green Must go (first time mayor), then 99% of the ego is outta the room and perhaps both sides can start FAIR negotiations!