Quesnel City Workers To Vote On Latest Offer

Monday, August 09, 2010 02:49 PM

Quesnel- City Of Quesnel emplpyees will vote this Wednesday and Thursday whether to accept the latest contract offer from the city of Quesnel.

The city has offered a three year contract . Zero per cent in year one, 1% in year 2 and 2% in year three.

“This year we had to cut more than $1 million from our budget, which included cutting the equivalent of 5.15 full-time jobs, affecting both union and non-union positions,” said City Manager Byron Johnson. “We also had to make significant cuts to our capital budget. And after all that, due to the changes in industrial property assessments, we still had to increase the average property tax by 4.3 percent.

Our goal is to maintain current service levels for our residents. Any additional costs make doing that more difficult.

“We have exceptional employees, but in times of economic challenges, we have to be realistic about negotiations,” added Johnson. “The last five-year contract saw a 15.5 percent increase when the Consumer Price Index increased by 6.5 percent.

Given the state of our economy and its effects on our residents, the current demands made by the union’s bargaining team of two, three and three-and-a-half percent pay increases, plus benefit improvements of more than one percent, are simply not realistic.”

The vote is administered by the BC Ministry of Labour. All members of CUPE Local 1050 are eligible to vote. If the vote passes, then the last offer presented by the City will form the next collective agreement.

If the vote fails, then the possibility of job action by either party exists. The union took a strike vote on May 31, after five days of negotiations. Some 91 percent voted in favour.

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Posted on Monday, August 09, 2010 02:49 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: Eagleone on August 9 2010 8:58 PM

That seems fair to me because these are employees that are likely on a wage salary and obviously a wage freeze is in order at this time. The real problem is the management salaries that are getting out of control in the 6-figure and above, those need to come down.

The only city jobs over $80,000 a year should go before a full vote in council to be justified and should have a sunset clause that terminates their employment at the end of the contract to be rejustified for a further contract before council again in 2-3 years time.