Striking workers await new government’s input

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This article was published 10/10/2023 (739 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As the province prepares to swear in its next premier, striking Manitoba Public Insurance workers are waiting to see how new leadership will impact negotiations between their employer and union, if at all.

Some 1,700 MPI workers have been on strike since Aug. 28, a day after the previous Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries strike ended. Both workplaces are represented by the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union; in both strikes, the union pointed the finger at Premier Heather Stefanson and her cabinet for introducing a bargaining mandate they said forced the Crown corporations to offer their staff no more than two per cent in general wage increases yearly for four years.

With conciliation talks having collapsed late last month, picketers are in limbo, wondering if the tides could change under a new government, MGEU president Kyle Ross said Tuesday.

“The problem is the employer doesn’t have the direction it needs to bargain with us. They have the old marching orders from the 2 per cent mandate from Heather Stefanson, and they’re waiting on the new mandate from from the new government once they’re sworn in,” he said.

Premier-designate Wab Kinew threw his support behind striking workers last week in his first media availability after being elected, but said he would need more information on how to avoid interfering in labour negotiations during the transition of power.

While MGEU called it a hopeful moment for its membership, the clock is ticking toward the possibility of arbitration forcibly settling the dispute. Manitoba’s Labour Relations Act states that if 60 days have passed since a strike or lockout began, either the employer or union can apply to the board to take the dispute to binding arbitration, effectively ending the strike.

MPI has called on the union to go directly to arbitration, an offer MGEU has refused in pursuit of negotiating at the bargaining table.

“During the strikes, both (MLL’s) strike and the current strike, the premier-(designate) visited our picket lines and told our members, ‘I’ve got your back’ … so I believe we’ll be able to bargain a deal, we just have to give him the opportunity to get up to speed on the file and get his people sworn in, and then we’ll have those conversations,” Ross said.

“It’s just, unfortunately, we have to wait until that happens, and in the meantime, Manitobans are suffering, our workers are suffering, because we have no one there to have those conversations with.”

MPI chairperson Ward Keith wouldn’t comment on what influence the provincial government had on bargaining before the election, or what it could look like after Kinew is sworn in. He said as a Crown corporation, MPI gets “broad direction on all of its activities from government” through its board of directors.

“From my perspective, whether the general wage increase is suggested by government or not is not really particularly relevant to me, given that the general wage increases put on the table for the MGEU in this particular discussion are very consistent with settlement patterns across the entire public sector in the province here,” he said.

Keith said MPI would “strongly consider” bringing the conflict to the Labour Board should a resolution not be reached over the next few weeks.

“The election last week didn’t change the fact there’s a final offer on the table,” he said.

University of Manitoba assistant professor of labour studies Adam King called it “unlikely” that the strike would stretch on to day 60 without some sort of consultation with the incoming provincial government, adding that as Kinew has promised a more hands-off approach to Crown corporation labour disputes, a cabinet friendlier toward unions could offer MPI a wider degree of latitude to offer a more appealing deal.

“The employer is probably in a worse bargaining position than they’ve been throughout, because they know they’re now facing the government that’s likely to be more favourable to the union,” he said.

One of the first post-pandemic inflation-related strike actions in Canada was held by liquor workers in British Columbia in August 2022, under an NDP government. Their success in receiving a settlement “set a tone for public-sector bargaining” that resulted in fewer strikes in B.C., King said.

Manitoba has the opportunity to do the same, but it would not be easy.

“Certainly, the incoming premier has made strong statements in support of workers, but he’s also made statements at things like the chamber of commerce committing to balanced budgets and basically maintaining quite minor public spending. So I think there’s sort of mixed signals on that end, and we’ll see,” he said.

“They have an opportunity to certainly reduce the number of strikes and offer more favourable wage packages to public-sector workers, but that requires spending, and it requires revenue generation that so far we haven’t heard a lot of positive things on.”