The B-C General Employees Union is hoping its escalating job actions will bring the provincial government back to the bargaining table.
To kick off the second week of its strike, the union imposed a ban on all non-emergency overtime, except for the staff of the wildfire service.
Union president Stephanie Smith said the public service hasn’t kept pace with increases in the workload and the province’s population.
Smith adds successive governments have been digging holes in the civil service for the past 16 years so that, today, overtime is the only way to cope with staff
shortages.
The union represents 33-thousand government employees (including 1,400 in Prince George and another 200 in the Nechako Valley and Bulkley Valley Lakes District).
There have been no talks in several weeks.
The union wants protection from the cost of living increases, while the province has offered an 11 percent pay hike in a three-year deal.
– with files from Vista Radio newswire