The BC General Employees Union is accusing the Cariboo Regional District (CRD) of using strong-arm tactics against striking workers.
BCGEU President-Elect Paul Finch says upper management has a responsibility to its staff and the entire community to adjust its last offer and bargain fairly for an improved contract that will serve the needs of all residents.
Finch adds that “it is incredibly unfair of the CRD to continue passing the buck to our members in the media, when they already know where the workers stand on the their insufficient wage proposal.”
He says the CRD management’s final offer did not include critical inflation-matching wage protections.
Finch says “final offer votes are a last-ditch effort on the employer’s part to compel staff to accept a less-than-ideal contract.”
He says “the workers have made their move, and now its the employer’s turn.”
Murray Daly, the Chief Administrative Officer with the CRD, says they are not going to negotiate in the media.
“There is also potential to make adjustments. If they want to come back to the table that’s when we’ll make them. I’m not going to have this negotiation out in the media and in the public eye. The table is set. When they’re ready to come back to the negotiating table and have a fair, equitable negotiation then that’s fine, but I’m not going to do it out in the public eye.”
Daly says they are trying to negotiate a deal that is fair to both employees and the taxpayer.
On that note, he says they have no interest in tying any raise to the Consumer Price Index.
“That continues to be the position of the Regional District. We feel that what the union is asking for is essentially for the Regional District to write a blank cheque every year, and we build financial plans five years in advance, we’re trying to look forward to what our priorities and our capital projects and things like that. There is just too much uncertainty if we don’t even know with concrete certainty what our payroll is going to be.”
Daly says they can’t go back to taxpayers when the CPI comes out and ask for more money from them.
It will be one month on Thursday that CRD workers in Quesnel, Williams Lake and 100 Mile House went on strike.
Picket lines first went up on May 13th.
–Files by George Henderson, My Cariboo Now
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