(File Photo/paNOW Staff)

By Jaryn Vecchio

Bargaining Impasse

‘We want a fair talk and fair deal’: City of P.A. inside workers set to strike in August

Jul 27, 2023 | 2:00 PM

A strike date has been set for inside workers with the City of Prince Albert.

If negotiations aren’t restarted by Aug. 10, 2023, around 160 employees will officially hit the picket line.

Cara Stelmaschuk, Vice-President of CUPE 882, told paNOW they have two main issues they want to be addressed.

The first is fair negotiations as she claims the union was offered a deal but was told they had to either accept it or reject it.

“The disrespect from just not being heard. It was very hurtful,” she said.

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One of the concerns they want to address is more vacation eligibility earlier in employment terms.

The other main issue is wages. In the last offer, the City proposed an 11 per cent increase over four years, however, it was voted down.

Stelmaschuk explained some may be confused as to why they would reject it, but they don’t believe it would be enough to match the rise of inflation.

“When you go back the last seven years, our highest increase was 1.75 per cent and this is how far we’re falling behind inflation. Even if we do end up at that 11 per cent in four years, we’re still losing purchasing power with inflation and we’re still well behind inflation,” she said.

CUPE 882 also mentioned that P.A.’s city council saw a 20 per cent increase in salary from 2016 to 2021. They’re also upset as they state in past negotiations they took a deal that had no wage increase, and they were hoping to see some more leniency from the City.

“We want a fair talk and fair deal,” added Stelmaschuk.

Meanwhile, Mayor Greg Dionne recently spoke to reporters where he said he was surprised that the latest offer was rejected.

He believes it was more than fair as he claims salaries for these workers are currently in the 85 percentile when compared to others and would go up to the 95 percentile with the current offer from the city.

“They say they want a larger increase because the cost of everything has gone up in the city. Well, the cost has gone up for everyone in the city, it’s not unique to them,” Dionne said.

He added that increasing the wages by 12 per cent instead of 11 per cent, which they claim was asked by CUPE, would lead to a sizeable increase in taxes for residents.

Currently, the City is also in negotiations with its second union that represents outside workers.

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Jaryn.Vecchio@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @princealbertnow