With the end of a two-month-long strike this week, unionized workers at Manitoba Public Insurance (MPI) are back on the job Friday, but the Crown corporation’s board chair is urging Manitobans to be patient as staff tackle a heavy backlog of work.
Carmen Nedohin told 680 CJOB’s The Start that there are around 15,000 driving tests that were put on hold due to the strike, and they’ll be looked at in terms of priority as well as chronological order.
On average, Nedohin said, MPI manages to get through about 300 such tests a day.
“The people who were supposed to be tested when the labour dispute started, they would be first in the queue,” she said.
“Some of these things change or people aren’t necessarily available at the time, so there’s a lot of different nuances that have to be worked through.
“And of course, we have people whose licences are their living — who depend on that licence to be a truck driver, etc.”
Nedohin said it will likely take a further couple of months to catch up on insurance claims that were filed during the labour impasse, although MPI did what it could to work with outside partners while the strike was taking place.
Claims will continue to be prioritized by damage and drivability.
“We worked very closely with our partners, like accredited autobody shops, during the labour dispute to get as many of them through the process (as we could).
“While every claim is certainly important, if you look at something like hail damage, it doesn’t affect the drivability of the vehicle. So, it may have been a little less priority than, say, someone whose vehicle is not roadworthy that had to be fixed.”
The strike, which the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union said was its longest since the 1990s, began Aug. 28 and affected more than 1,700 workers.
The four-year contract agreed upon Tuesday between the union and the province includes total wage increases of 13 per cent over four years, a one-time, lump-sum signing bonus of $1,800 per full-time employee, and two weeks of recognition pay to cover the post-election period when the government was transitioning and bargaining had to be put on hold.