Striking RM of Tache workers issue flood warning

Striking employees in the RM of Tache are warning overland flooding could be imminent if they don’t get back to work soon.

Usually by now, ditches and culverts would have been cleared of snow, so any spring runoff would have somewhere to go. With ditches still full of snow, roads and low-lying properties could fill with water.

“We have problematic places that are low and that need to be open. If we don’t open them up soon enough, the main rivers and drainways fill up, and then they cannot drain because everywhere else is full already,” said Matthew Kaizyk, the RM’s grader operator. “We’d love to go out, but we can’t.”

Members of the Operating Engineers of Manitoba Local 987 are entering their strike’s fifth week, owing to an impasse on negotiations. The union and municipality have agreed on a two-year contract for employees, but the municipality wants a third year added to the contract. The union will not agree to the third year unless pay-scale adjustments are made.

Road-levelling will be impacted by the strike, too. Kaizyk estimates when employees are eventually back on the job they will be catching up on work for the rest of the year.

Kaizyk has worked for the municipality for more than 19 years and lives in the area. He doesn’t want to see he and his neighbours endure the consequences of the ongoing strike.

An essential services agreement is in place for services such as snow clearing and landfill operations, but all other services are at a standstill.

“We don’t want to see the constituents suffer because of this… (but) we look around at the surrounding municipalities and we’re not being paid a fair rate,” Kaizyk said.

Employees have been working without a contract for more than two years. Twenty-two workers who deal with day-to-day public works operations are currently on strike.

About a dozen workers picketed outside the municipal building Monday morning, with support from the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union, United Food and Commercial Workers, the Manitoba Teachers’ Society and the Manitoba Federation of Labour.

Marc Lafond, the business manager for the union, says if the municipality doesn’t agree to fair wages for its workers, it could risk losing them.

“Whether it’s attrition or recruitment or retention, they’re going to have a hard time in the future,” Lafond said. “The union tries to walk that line in between the membership that’s currently there and the future membership that might come to us, and we need to make sure jobs are still attractive here.”

Council had a scheduled meeting at the RM building, which doubles as the public works building, on Monday morning. The agenda did not mention bargaining discussions.

Tache Mayor Armand Poirier and interim chief administrative officer Jeanette Laramee did not respond to requests for comment.

According to the Hydrologic Forecast Centre, there is low to moderate risk of spring flooding in most parts of the province this year, with exceptions in some areas of the Interlake region and northern Manitoba.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca