‘We remain confident’

Province agrees to let court vet contentious freeze of retirement bonus

A court review that will determine the constitutionality of a piece of contentious labour legislation will be expanded to include plans to end a retirement bonus for civil servants, the Nova Scotia government announced Wednesday.

In August, the government proclaimed Bill 148 — which enforces a wage package on civil servants — and referred the new law to the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal for constitutional review.

But it omitted the retirement bonus from the review, prompting outrage from labour groups.

Labour Relations Minister Mark Furey told reporters the government decided to expand the review after consultations with the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour, the umbrella group for several provincial unions.

Furey said the move would mean a more efficient court process.

“That was the basis behind consideration of (omitted) sections 20 to 23, and we believe that will allow intervener status and a much more streamlined court process,’’ he said.

The Public Service Award was first negotiated in 1974 — a civil servant earning the average wage of $56,000 would have been eligible for a maximum benefit of $28,000 at retirement.

Government officials have estimated the long service award costs the government about $40 million a year.

The act freezes the retirement allowance as of April 1, 2015, and sets a wage pattern of three per cent over four years that allows increases of one per cent in the third year of the contract, followed by 1.5 per cent in the fourth year and 0.5 per cent on the final day of the package.

When the government proclaimed the bill it said it was confident of being on solid legal ground, and Furey said that still hasn’t changed.

“Absolutely, we remain confident in the reference question relative to the whole Act,’’ he said.

Danny Cavanagh, president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour, confirmed that conversations between the sides had resulted in the government’s latest move.

“We talked about the fairness of this stuff and that they needed to put the entire bill before the courts. We are glad to see that they have done that.’’

Unions have maintained they believe the new law is unconstitutional because it affects a provision — the long service award — that was previously won in collective bargaining.

“If the appeal court says at the end of the day this is unconstitutional, the question becomes will the government abide by that and drop Bill 148 and go back to the bargaining table.’’ said Cavanagh.

In a news release, the president of the province’s largest public sector union, the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union, said he was pleased the government had amended the review.