Mount Pearl’s union awaits re-employment plans before voting on the proposed new contract

There was more than a glimmer of hope that the longest urban labor dispute in Pearl Mountain’s history would end soon, but the union postponed the ratification vote until the city presented plans for a return to work.

A breakthrough came over the weekend when a conciliator helped bridge the huge gap between the team representing the city and the Canadian Union of Local Public Servants 2099.

Usually, a tentative agreement is immediately followed by a vote of ratification.

However, union officials remained jittery, and signaled on Monday that the city was in no rush to welcome workers back, a possible sign of the tension and rhetoric that has dominated the more than 10 weeks since the strike began on July 7.

“Cities have indeed shown that they are not ready to accept their workers back to work,” said 2099 Local President Ken Turner Monday afternoon.

“We’re not quite sure what that means. What we do know is that we can’t bring the vote of ratification to our membership without getting back to work fully.”

Five of the seven Mount Pearl city council members took part in Monday’s wreath-laying ceremony as part of the tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II. With the city reaching an interim collective agreement with city workers last weekend, they are in optimistic mode. They are, from left, Jim Locke, Bill Antle, Mayor Dave Aker, Isabelle Fry and Mark Rice. Missing from photo: Chelsea Lane and deputy mayor Nicole Kieley. (Terry Roberts/CBC)

Despite the picket lines, the municipality’s most basic services have been maintained by more than 40 city management staff, with the strike disrupting various services, including youth sports, recycling programs and road maintenance.

Ken Turner is president of CUPE Local 2099, which represents approximately 200 municipal employees in Mount Pearl City. The workers have been on strike since July 7. (Terry Roberts/CBC)

The two sides have engaged in back-and-forth public relations, with unions standing firm on promises to fight the city’s efforts to slash benefits for new hires and the city saying it must hold back on spending limits as tax revenues decline. .

The strike took a more serious tone over the summer, when the city accused union members of intimidating and intimidating managers who tried to cross the line, and threatened to discipline some workers for violating safety protocols.

Asked on Monday how he would describe the behavior of the union and its membership during the strike, Mayor Dave Aker said, “Those are details that will be discussed as part of the return to work and interim agreement. So at the end of the day we will discuss that and be able to comment on it publicly later in the week. this.”

After several weeks of stalemate, negotiations resumed in earnest in recent days, and the two sides reached a tentative agreement, with neither side offering public insight into what was negotiated.

Mount Pearl Mayor Dave Aker expressed cautious optimism Monday following a breakthrough in negotiations with the union representing 200 striking city workers. (Terry Roberts/CBC)

But despite hours of talks on Saturday, the return to work strategy was not achieved.

Turner said his members were ready to vote on the principle of the deal on Monday, but without a return to work strategy, the planned vote was postponed.

Meanwhile, the trade union did not provide a recommendation to its members whether to accept the agreement.

“We believe there is a big part of our deal that needs to be discussed, and members have to make decisions about what they want to do to continue what the city has presented,” Turner said.

CUPE has an experienced bargaining committee, and Turner said the negotiations were some of the toughest they’ve ever experienced.

“There seemed to be a lot of obstacles along the way, but we managed to overcome them. We’ve reached a place where we think we can get back into membership, and that’s where we need to be,” he said. said.

The mayor chose his words very carefully on Monday, but sounded hopeful that the chances of a resolution had increased.

“Both sides want services to return to normal. The workers want to get back to work, and of course the board is doing it in a normal way too, so we look forward to getting services back on track and working with our employees going forward,” Aker said.

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Hadwin Floyd

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