B.C. interior sawmills achieve pattern contract
A respectable margin of 83 per cent of Alberta’s 21,000 provincial government employees voted in favour of a new collective agreement on March 12. Over 60 per cent of members voted.
In keeping with the province’s wage restraint policy, it offers only one four per cent increase over a 30-month term. In addition, there are two lump sums, one on ratification and the second at the end of 2011, totalling $3,000 per full-time employee.
Employee workload was a central issue for the union during bargaining and it achieved some improvement in that regard. The province will create a joint forum where “the provision of services and staffing requirements, situations where current employees and their work are moved to a non-broad public sector employer, and the utilization of temporary and wage employment” can be discussed.
After over a year and one-half without an agreement, the 4,000 Steelworkers employed in the lumber industry in the southern interior of British Columbia have a deal.
According to the union, it “improved on the ‘Northern Pattern’.” There will be no wage increases for the first two years (which have almost passed), two per cent in the third year and two per cent in the fourth.
Any member who has been laid off since July 1, 2009 — the expiry of the previous contract — retains recall rights until the expiry of this agreement on June 30, 2013. In an industry that has seen massive layoffs, this will be welcome news to workers.
