'The membership is with us,' NEU boss declares

The Government of Nunavut's unionized workers say they're willing to walk off the job if that's what it takes to get a new wage-benefit deal that meets their demands.

In a mail-in vote held between March 3 and March 30, 90 per cent of union members who voted said yes to giving their union a mandate to call a strike, the Public Service Alliance of Canada announced this past Sunday in a news release.

"We're showing the employer that we should be taken seriously, because the membership is with us," said Doug Workman, president of the Nunavut Employees' Union, the PSAC component that represents GN workers.

With a positive strike-vote in their pocket, only one legal impediment now prevents the NEU from going on strike: an essential services agreement with the GN.

Such an agreement would list those employees who must remain on the job to protect public health and safety in the event of a work-stoppage.

Workman said the two sides have agreed to essential service arrangements for every GN department except one: the Department of Health and Social Services.

Right now, one-third of that department's 940 jobs were unfilled as of December 2007, according to the GN's latest employment numbers.

For this reason, getting an essential services agreement for the health department will be "a particular challenge," Workman said, saying he hopes the two sides will get an essential services agreement wrapped up this week.

The last wage-benefit contract between the GN and the NEU expired Oct. 1, 2006. Talks aimed at reaching a new one broke down this past Jan. 25.

The two sides cannot agree on a long list of issues: basic wages, northern allowance payments, recruitment and retention payments, along with issues raised by special groups such as nurses and corrections workers.

In its last wage offer, the GN offered wage increases every six months starting at 2 per cent on April 1, 2008 and rising to 2.75 per cent by April 1, 2010. They would also make a 1 per cent payment retroactive to Oct. 1, 2006.

The NEU countered that by asking for a 5 per cent wage increase every six months, starting Oct. 1, 2006.

The two sides are also separated by big disagreements over the size of northern allowance and recruitment-retention payments.

So when talks fell apart, the NEU requested the appointment of a mediator to help the two sides reach a deal.

The two sides have now agreed on using Colin Taylor, a respected Vancouver lawyer with more than 20 years of experience in mediation, arbitration and dispute resolution.

Taylor will put his mediation skills to the test May 1-4, when the two sides are scheduled sit down with him.

Meanwhile, the union will soon run a series of strike preparation courses for its members throughout Nunavut.

Workman said he believes the GN's unionized workers may be willing to take a harder line than they've taken in past wage-benefit talks.

He said many of the mailed-in strike-vote ballots contained notes – written in English, Inuktitut or French – expressing support for the NEU negotiating team.

"That was really special this time," Workman said.

He said that two big issues are likely making GN workers angry: the GN's policy of raising staff housing rents to market levels, and understaffing.

"We certainly heard comments that there are so many vacancies in the Government of Nunavut, they're all feeling stressed," he said.

Right now, only 2,932 GN jobs are filled, while 839 lie vacant. And of the jobs that are filled, a whopping 1,197 are filled by casual workers, 70 per cent of whom are Inuit beneficiaries.

Workman also said the strike-vote result shows that employees don't buy the GN's latest staff housing concessions.

In 2008-09 budget speech, Finance Minister Louis Tapardjuk declared that the GN will roll staff housing rents back to where they stood as of Jan. 1, 2007. That eliminates a 20 per cent rent increase that staff housing tenants in Iqaluit, Cambridge Bay and Rankin Inlet were forced to pay at the beginning of this year.

At the same time, Tapardjuk announced a new housing allowance, worth $400 per household, for employees who own homes or rent in the private market.

But many employees do not trust the GN's sincerity, Workman said.

"There's a rumour going around that the rollback is only temporary," Workman said.