Bargaining Bulletin#5: BCGEU got a deal! What does this mean for us?

Hi friends!

As you may recall from my last bargaining update, Unions are so hot right now. You have probably already seen that after an unprecedented eight-week strike, BCGEU signed a four-year contract with the B.C. Government. You may have some questions! Let’s see if we can’t take them on…

Is this a good deal?

In short, yes! When bargaining began, the Government was signalling that it would only be able to offer wage increases in the neighbourhood of 1.5% per year—far below inflation, and nowhere close to addressing the overlapping affordability crises. The courage and resilience of our BCGEU friends dragged the government far past the 2% or so HEU, the province’s other big public sector union, unfortunately settled for, to 3% per year, plus additional money to increase benefits and address low-wage income disparity in the Union. That number, while still not ideal, is likely to beat inflation all four years and provide at least some relief to striking workers. They should be proud—and the CCFA is grateful for their resolve (that’s why we kept visiting their picket lines with treats and good cheer).

The result of this strike—a 3% general wage increase each year—also reflects very well on the offer we currently have on the table (that the Employer has yet to counter): a 3.6% increase in a one-year deal. (More on that later…)

Does this mean we’re going back to the bargaining table?

Unfortunately, no. Well, not immediately. As you know, our experience with the Employer brought us to the B.C. Labour Board, who is currently weighing our competing bad faith complaints and our application for binding arbitration. Those complaints need to be resolved before we can proceed, and we would need to withdraw our arbitration application. If the Employer agreed, we could theoretically withdraw both bad faith applications, but we don’t have any plans to do that. Withdrawing our complaint would mean that we think it’s acceptable for the Employer to come to the negotiating table with no authority or intention to bargain money. We don’t, so we won’t.

So we’re happy with our current strategy?

Absolutely! Our thinking remains unchanged: our positions with the Employer on key issues like Workload, Appraisals, and Chair Release are miles apart. To make any meaningful progress on them will take a long time. In June, we proposed a one-year, salary-only deal that would buy us some time while still making sure our members received a fair wage increase during an affordability crisis. It was an elegant, creative solution to a difficult problem. The Employer insisted it couldn’t bargain money, leaving us rather nonplussed. We don’t agree, and we think it’s an important question for the Labour Board to decide.

In the meantime, our impressive preparation and initiative means we are still far ahead of the sector, even with this delay at the Board. The rest of the sector has only just started bargaining this month, with most Colleges only in preliminary talks.

What’s next?

We are still serving at the pleasure of the B.C. Labour Board, but we hope to get an update on our cases’ status very soon. Your Contract Negotiations Committee (Interested in joining? Of course you are! Email ac.ytlucafnusomac@gniniagrab today!) is hard at work strategizing next steps in the wake of this changing bargaining landscape. We have some creative ideas on how to get the most value for our members, and we can’t wait to share them with you.