City, union show no signs of movement

IQALUIT — City of Iqaluit officials and their locked-out workers are showing no sign of movement from their respective positions as Iqaluit’s municipal lock-out enters its fourth week.

Iqaluit Mayor John Matthews said that after an internal meeting this Tuesday, city officials have decided to hold firm on their latest offer, which union members have already rejected without a vote.

“We’re always open to some switching of money, but the consensus amongst council is not to go beyond that limit. We don’t want to incur more costs, but we can play with the existing money that we are providing,” Matthews said.

Meanwhile, in response to a demand from a group of irate Iqaluit residents who met last Saturday, the city has decided to open Iqaluit’s dump between 1 and 5 p.m. tomorrow, to allow volunteers to deliver garbage.

Doug Workman, president of the Nunavut Employees Union, declined to comment on this development when asked about it just before Nunatsiaq News’ press deadline Wednesday.

“I’d have to seek a legal opinion first,” Workman said.

Matthews said that if union members picket the dump entrance on Saturday, it will be up to community members to decide if they wish to cross the line.

Matthews said city officials also decided to look at ways of opening up blocked drainage systems to eliminate the dangerous pools of spring melt-water that have appeared all over Iqaluit in recent weeks.

He said the city wants to drain the pools of water to protect children from falling into them, and said he hopes the union will understand why.

“We’re still very hopeful that the union will realize the danger of the situation,” Matthews said.

The city locked out its unionized workers just after the Easter weekend, saying this measure is the only way to ensure that the union complies with an agreement to provide essential services for the duration of the contract dispute.

The union, Local 6 of the NEU, still takes the position that it has followed the essential services agreement to the letter, and they say the city has made false accusations against them.

“All they have to do is pick up the phone and call us and we can discuss emergency situations,” Workman said.

The city has received permission from the Canada Industrial Relations Board to seek an injunction in court to enforce its interpretation of the essential services agreement.

But Matthews says the city hasn’t yet made a decision on whether to do that, and is still gathering evidence to support its position.

“Its necessary for the city to prove beyond any element of doubt that there really is an emergency,” Matthews said.

A grader owned by the R.L Hanson firm of Iqaluit has been grading the city’s dilapidated roads since last Thursday, when a group of union members tried to stop it from doing repair work on the airport road.

The protestors allowed the grader to continue after RCMP officers arrived.

Matthews said the Hanson grader isn’t doing bargaining unit work.

“I think there was some confusion that this grader was cutting into the jobs of the town, but it definitely isn’t. This is a contract that was contemplated long before the labour dispute became a reality,” Matthews said.

On Wednesday, some Local 6 members began picketing the R.L. Hanson yard in Lower Base, accusing Hanson’s staff of scabbing.

Workman said he had no comment on this move, saying that he had just heard about it.

As for Iqaluit volunteers who have been filling potholes on their own, Matthews said it’s “very healthy” for the community.

“I think it’s wonderful. I like the idea of seeing people go out and filling in the potholes on their own, people that don’t have a particular side or leaning with one side or the other.”

Neither side appear ready to make any moves that might lead to a settlement of the dispute.

The city has already rejected the idea of submitting the dispute to a form of binding arbitration in which an arbitrator would come up with a compromise contract.

Matthews said the union deliberately came into negotiations with an unrealistically high proposal, in the hope that an arbitrator would rule 50-50 between the two offers and produce an agreement more favourable to the union than to the city.

He said, however, that the city might consider a form of arbitration in which an arbitrator would choose between the two offers now on the table.

“The other alternative with arbitration is to put both offers on the table and ask the arbitrator to choose one or the other,” Matthews said. “I’m not sure if council would go with that, but if council did go with it, it would be on the understanding that they feel very confident that their offer is sufficiently fair.”

On May 23, members of the Canada Industrial Relations Tribunal will arrive in Iqaluit to decide on a bad faith bargaining complaint that the union made against the city several weeks ago.