GN workers seek contract favoring families

For the Nunavut Employees Union, 2004 could become the year of the family.

During a pre-Christmas meeting in Iqaluit, negotiators for the NEU and the Government of Nunavut began formal talks aimed at forging a new wage and benefit agreement for about 1,300 unionized GN employees.

Union officials opened the session by handing their government counterparts a 238-page document containing a list of demands for inclusion in a new two-year contract -including a plan to create a revamped, family oriented northern allowance system.

Under the union’s proposal, the size of northern allowance payments would rise dramatically for employees with families, employees who own their own homes, and employees who live in small, high-cost communities.

“We’re looking at things to benefit long-term Nunavut residents,” said Mitch Taylor, the NEU’s first vice-president.

Negotiators aren’t allowed to talk about what is said during the sessions, and no one from either side of the bargaining table will comment on them.

But the union has posted its entire bargaining position on its web site, at www.neu.ca, to provide information to members.

The document shows that at the highest end of the scale, a homeowner living in Taloyoak with five dependents could, under the NEU’s proposal, get a northern allowance of $65,445 as of April 1, 2005.

At the lowest end, a single Iqaluit employee living in subsidized GN housing would get a northern allowance of $13,724 as of the same date.

Right now, the GN’s northern allowance system does not distinguish between single employees and employees with large dependent families.

“This under-compensates employees with families, while it over-compensates single employees,” says a union discussion paper on the cost of living in Nunavut, written and researched for the NEU by Alison Rogan.

For example, a single employee gets the cash equivalent of four economy airfares – the same as a family of five. And Rogan’s study found that Nunavut families are getting pummelled by the cost of food. The average Nunavut family spends $9,800 a year more on food and freight than the average single person in Nunavut.

“We have full-time indeterminate employees of the Government of Nunavut that also have to be on social assistance just because of the differentials,” Taylor said.

The NEU’s last contract with the government expired April 1, 2003. That deal was struck in May 2001, after a protracted set of negotiations, a brief spat of rotating walk-outs, and a series of demonstrations that saw Finance Minister Kelvin Ng’s home in Yellowknife targeted by picketers.

The deal-breaker issue then was the northern allowance, as the union fought to recover what it lost in the infamous GNWT contract of 1996, when the territorial government scrapped its vacation travel assistance and settlement allowance system, and replaced them with a lesser benefit now known as the Nunavut northern allowance.

In the end, however, union members rejected the advice of the NEU’s executive and voted yes to the GN’s final offer. In the 2001 wage deal, the GN raised northern allowances by amounts ranging from 15 per cent to 59 per cent, depending on the community of residence, and raised wage rates by 9.3 per cent over three years.

The NEU’s new northern allowance proposal would go a long way toward restoring the cost of living and vacation travel benefits their members lost in 1996, and failed to win back in 2001. This time, however, their emphasis is on families.

“I’d say our biggest emphasis this time that’s a little different from last time is that the message we got from our members, loud and clear, is they want to see a collective agreement that’s family oriented,” Taylor said.

The new benefit would have two parts: a “Cost of Living Equalization,” and a “Travel Equalization.” For a single employee, the travel benefit would provide two air fares a year. But an employee with a family would get airfare for up to five dependents.

The NEU believes its family oriented proposal makes sense for the GN, because it encourages the development of a stable, long-term workforce and helps Inuit employees, who are more likely to have large dependent families.

“We’re finding a lot of common goals, and a lot of agreement where we’re supporting each other. It’s not just about business, it’s not just about the collective agreement, it’s about how we can make Nunavut a better place to live,” Taylor said.

The collective agreement covers all GN workers, except employees of the Nunavut Power Corp., who have a separate contract, and teachers, who are represented by the Federation of Nunavut Teachers.

Union and government negotiators will next meet between Jan. 19 and Jan. 24, and between Feb. 9 and Feb. 13.

By then, the union expects to hear the government’s response to its bargaining proposal.