Manitoba Hydro workers threaten to strike as of Friday

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This article was published 28/06/2023 (856 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

More than 2,000 Manitoba Hydro employees, including those who work at northern generating stations, repair transmission lines and restore power when there’s an outage, could go on strike as of Friday.

On Wednesday, the publicly owned power company received 48-hour notice of strike action from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2034.

Despite the notification, it’s not guaranteed strike action will start after 48 hours, said Manitoba Hydro spokesman Bruce Owen.

If it does, the utility has developed contingency plans to ensure emergency and essential services, as well as public safety issues, are safeguarded throughout any labour dispute, he said.

Mike Espenell, IBEW Local 2034 business manager, said their contract expired in February 2022 and they’re ready to strike as of Friday since negotiations have not been successful.

It’s been just two years since they last took job action.

After two months of rotating strikes in the spring of 2021, the IBEW applied to the labour board for an alternative dispute resolution process, as allowed by Manitoba law.

The union had complained the Pallister government at the time was not allowing Hydro to bargain wages outside of the Tory administration’s parameters, which called for zero per cent increases in the first two years of a public-sector collective agreement, followed by increases no higher than 0.75 per cent and one per cent in years 3 and 4, respectively.

A mediator was appointed to settle a contract that was retroactive to 2019 and expired in February 2022.

Now the union is seeking a contract that includes competitive wages to help recruit and retain employees.

It wants quality-of-living issues addressed, especially for those in northern and isolated locations who work up to 55 days at a time without the ability to travel, Espenell said.

He said Hydro had a net profit of $700 million in 2022 and rewarded its executives and supervisors with bonuses while those on the front line are given short shrift.

The Crown corporation provided its IBEW employees with an improved final offer in May 2023, “one we believe balanced fairness to our employees with fiscal responsibility to our customers,” Owen said.

“With that, we remain hopeful a strike can be averted. We’re committed to reaching a fair and equitable settlement with IBEW through the collective bargaining process. Our goal is still to conclude negotiations as soon as possible to minimize the impact on our customers, whether they be residential a customer or a business,” he said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca