New Brunswick’s largest public sector union is accusing the government of negotiating in bad faith in a letter sent to the labour board.
The complaint stems from centralized bargaining talks between the two sides that broke down a week ago. About 22,000 workers across 10 locals have begun strike votes or will begin them soon.
The union says the government engaged in receding horizon bargaining by introducing concessions that weren’t included in the mandate for the centralized process.
CUPE NB president Stephen Drost says Premier Blaine Higgs pitched the centralized process during a Zoom meeting on Aug. 17, which was only to include discussions over wages — with other pieces of potential contracts to be subsequently handled by individual locals.
“That is exactly what was agreed to and he actually used the language nuances. He said we’ll deal with the wage piece, settle that and then deal with the nuances,” Drost said.
“Each bargaining unit has different issues, they do different jobs and have different requirements at work, so it’s those specific things that the bargaining committees would have to resolve themselves once the wage mandate was set.”
Last Friday, Higgs said that was never part of the agreement and that it would not be possible to negotiate wages in isolation.
“If you go in and you buy a car and drive off with it and say, ‘Shoot, I wish I had negotiated a spare tire, I wish I had talked about the warranty, I wish I had had a discussion about the maintenance agreement, but I can’t do it because I’ve already bought it,'” Higgs said.
“You can’t isolate the issue on salaries and then say, ‘But I’ll be real serious, I’ll talk about all the other stuff once we talk about this.’ You can’t do that in negotiations.”
Higgs says he was clear with union representatives during a meeting on Aug. 26 that the government wanted a list of things the union was willing to address.
“I said I want a list of all of the issues that are on the table,” Higgs said.
Drost doesn’t deny that meeting happened, but said the introduction of “concessions” was not part of the process agreed to back on Aug. 17.
Bargaining rules followed, says province
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Finance and treasury board said government negotiators have followed bargaining rules at all times.
“Provincial government negotiators adhere to the established rules and regulations at all times and the current round of negotiations with CUPE locals is no different. We will respond to the CUPE complaint when requested to do so by the board,” wrote Dave MacLean.
When talks broke down at 11:30 a.m. on Friday, the two sides were still far apart. The government had moved from its initial offer of a three-per-cent wage increase over four years, instead offering a six-year contract, with four years of one-per-cent increases and two-per-cent bumps in the final year. That was the wage package recently rejected by two bargaining units of the New Brunswick Nurses Union.
The government then offered to bump increases up to 1.25 per cent in the first four years. According to Higgs, CUPE was unwilling to budge from its proposal of a 20-per-cent wage increase over four years. He said the government was not willing to continue negotiating with itself.
“There hasn’t really been much negotiation of any kind because their position of five per cent increase a year hasn’t changed at all,” Higgs said on Friday.
The government package also included proposals to remove about 100 managers from the union, to bring some locals still on defined pension packages into the provincial shared-risk model and to boost pay for casuals from 80 per cent to 100 per cent.
According to a release from the government, their offer would cost about $71 million a year. The union’s proposal was costed to $158 million a year.
At least one CUPE local has been without a contract since 2016 and the collective agreements for three more expired in 2017. The union has maintained that those years, along with low wage contracts for the previous 10 years, have left workers earning wages far below that of the cost of living.
Higgs, on the other had, has argued that the the province’s financial position means taxpayers can’t afford the increases being asked for. The 2020-2021 budget forecasts close to a billion dollars being added to the net debt over the next four years.
“I feel good about what we’re presenting and I can’t stress enough how much we need everyone to be part of New Brunswick’s future success,” Higgs said Friday.
The union expects to know the result of the strike votes by the end of the month. The province says contingency plans are in place in the event of a strike and there are workers who are designated as essential in all CUPE units to ensure the health and safety of the public.
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