Conciliator appointed in hopes of kickstarting contract talks between city and its largest union

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This article was published 02/03/2017 (3170 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Negotiators for city hall and its largest union are going back to the bargaining table with the help of a provincially appointed conciliator.

An update posted Thursday on CUPE Local 500’s website said negotiations are resuming after the city requested the province appoint the conciliator.

“While conciliation officers have considerable skill and experience in negotiations and labour relations, they have no power to impose a settlement between the parties,” said CUPE 500 president Gord Delbridge in the website update. “As it stands now, we have dates set to meet with the conciliator in March and April. Your bargaining committee remains strong, united and committed to negotiating a fair contract, while protecting the city services that Winnipeggers rely on.”

CUPE 500 represents about 4,600 civic workers in almost every department across city hall.

Delbridge told the Free Press on Feb. 10 that negotiations had “paused” as a result of city hall tabling what he called an “unprecedented proposal package” that demanded sweeping concessions.

Neither side has disclosed the content of the city’s proposal package.

Labour negotiations haven’t been going well at city hall. Collective agreements with CUPE 500, police and firefighters expired at the end of December, while the agreement for the middle management union expired more than a year ago.

The firefighters and WAPSO (Winnipeg Association of Public Service Officers) are going to binding arbitration. As of last month, the only union still in talks with the city was the Winnipeg Police Association.

Delbridge said in his update message that WAPSO informed its members they are not obligated to volunteer to do the work of another civic union in the event of a work stoppage.

“This message is a clear show of solidarity and strengthens our position at the bargaining table,” Delbridge said.

Delbridge would not disclose any key outstanding issues, but he told the Free Press in November the union would not give ground on the job security clause that prohibits layoffs as a result of contracting and they wanted wage increases better than what they saw in the last two agreements.

City hall is expected to take a hard line on wages but that appears out of their hands when dealing with the firefighters and WAPSO, since both groups are going to arbitration, where the arbitrators often refer to comparable wage increases at similar-sized municipalities for similar work.

Opting to go to binding arbitration is surprising for the firefighters, who were able to reach an agreement with the city on their own in the last set of talks that resulted in annual pay increases of three per cent between 2014 and 2016.

Council directed the police board to set police budgets with wage increases at or below the rate of inflation. The only hope of achieving a settlement like that is at the bargaining table, but it’s unlikely to happen if police follow the other two unions and go to arbitration. Past arbitration rulings have relied on police wage increases in Calgary and Edmonton, which have been recognized as consistently the richest in the country. In the last three-year agreement, the WPA saw annual wage increases of 3.5, three and three per cent.

Leadership at CUPE 500 said they believe their members have been treated poorly in comparison to the other civic unions. The last two-year agreement with CUPE 500 had annual wages of two per cent; the agreement before that included a one-year wage freeze followed by annual increases of one, 2.5 and 2.5 per cent.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca