MPI workers walk off job; union, Crown corporation point fingers By: Malak Abas Posted: 10:33 AM CDT Monday, Aug. 28, 2023 Last Modified: 5:57 PM CDT Monday, Aug. 28, 2023 Updates

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For the first time in its 52-year history, Manitoba Public Insurance workers took to the picket lines Monday, leading to service shutdowns across the province.

“It didn’t really have to come to this, we could have just bargained a deal,” Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union president Kyle Ross said outside the Crown auto insurer’s 1284 Main St. location, as picketers marched around him.

“It’s unfortunate that Manitobans, again, have to pay the price for the government’s inability to bargain with workers in Manitoba.”

A majority of staff — around 1,700 of MPI’s 2,000 employees — are on strike. The 300 non-unionized management staff are currently working at MPI’s contact centre.

All MPI locations were closed and all scheduled appointments were cancelled Monday, including driver testing, damage estimates and adjustments, and driver-fitness appointments.

Other services remain open, including the MPI contact centre for reporting auto-related personal injuries, collisions that involve a vehicle that can’t be driven, and stolen vehicles.

MPI has recommended anyone with general inquiries, licence renewals or insurance payments go to an Autopac broker, while all other claims will be handled by MPI-accredited repair shops.

Customers will still be able to access vehicles towed to the Winnipeg compound on Plessis Road.

Insurance payments for those claiming personal injuries will continue uninterrupted.

The current four-year offer from MPI includes an annual two per cent wage increase, a $1,800 one-time signing bonus for all employees, a permanent new pay step of 3.5 per cent, a one per cent market adjustment for all employees working in MPI operations, and some expansion of benefits.

“It didn’t really have to come to this, we could have just bargained a deal.”–MGEU president Kyle Ross

The Crown corporation has said its offer is equal to a 17 per cent wage increase.

MGEU has called that stance disingenuous and misleading.

As was the case during the recent Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Corp. strike that ended as the MPI strike began, the union would like to see annual wage increases for all workers in line with those given to Premier Heather Stefanson and all MLAs: 3.3 per cent in 2023, and 3.6 per cent in 2024 and 2025.

MPI board chairman Ward Keith said the corporation is working on restoring paused services within the next 48 hours, including bringing in external service providers to replace striking workers, “with or without an end to the MGEU strike.”

“I make no apologies for creating contingency plans that will ultimately maintain services for customers and protect Manitobans,” he said Monday.

MPI also offered to immediately move to arbitration, Keith said, but the union refused.

“With an offer worth 17 per cent in total monetary value, there are limits to how far MPI can go to reach a deal for unionized employees,” he said, also taking a jab at MGEU’s back-to-back strike action.

“To me, it appears that their primary objective is to keep picketers on the streets… And that is very unfortunate.”

Meanwhile, the Tory premier took to X (formerly Twitter) to accuse MGEU of playing politics.

“I’d like to say ‘yes’ to everything, but sometimes the answer just has to be ‘no’ — like the (MLL) and MPI strikes, where the same union leader said ‘no’ to fair raises and binding arbitration because of politics,” Stefanson says in a short video posted to her account Monday.

“I’d like to say ‘yes’ to everything, but sometimes the answer just has to be ‘no’ — like the (MLL) and MPI strikes.”–Premier Heather Stefanson

MGEU held a second news conference to respond to Stefanson’s comments Monday afternoon.

“You need to ask yourself what it says about the premier that she will do anything and say anything to justify her low-wage policy,” Ross said.

“Why is she so obsessed with keeping wages for working families as low as possible, when she had her cabinet ministers are taking so much more for themselves?”

Christopher Adams, an adjunct professor in political sciences at the University of Manitoba, said a second consecutive Crown corporation strike so close to the Oct. 3 provincial election is a possible hurdle for both the Tories and NDP — depending on how it plays out.

“MGEU had effectively shaped the conversation during the previous strike, and there’s no reason to think that they won’t be able to shape the public conversation on this (MPI) strike,” he said.

“I would say it’s bad news for the PCs. At the same time, the NDP, because they’re affiliated with the public-sector unions, the NDP has to be careful that attention isn’t drawn to them as being linked to the strike itself — so the NDP have to play kind of a careful game on this.”

Ross said Monday there are no negotiations scheduled with MPI. “They won’t engage, so it’s really difficult to get this resolved.”

MPI won’t negotiate if the topic is general wage increases, Keith said.

“We’re not prepared to have further discussions on general wage increases beyond two per cent, because we’ve offered the offer of going to independent arbitration to settle that issue.”

The union said it will establish picket lines outside MPI locations in Winnipeg, The Pas, Thompson, Dauphin, Brandon, Portage la Prairie, Winkler, Arborg, Beausejour, Selkirk and Steinbach.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca