CUPE deal heading to ratification process
Earliest severance payouts would be Q1 2019
There’s potential for a contract deal between the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, as announced by the government Thursday, with a union rep saying it still needs to go to the union’s seven bargaining committees, then a membership vote.
Making it at least past union brass so far, the tentative agreement would remove severance from the government books, offer no wage increases, but include a clause protecting union members against any mass layoffs (that being for the life of the contract).
If accepted by the bargaining committees, the early agreement will go out to the roughly 4,000 public sector employees represented by CUPE for ratification vote. Given the time of year and logistics involved in bringing even the bargaining committees together, CUPE rep Brian Farewell told The Telegram — worst case scenario — a start for voting, assuming it gets there, could land in the late summer or early fall.
What’s on the table right now is a four-year contract, two being retroactive. It would expire on March 31, 2020 — after the next provincial election in late 2019.
About $35.7 million in severance payouts went out to members of the Newfoundland and
Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees (NAPE) in the first quarter of this year, after they signed on to a similar agreement. Severance payouts and alternate arrangements continue for that union’s membership.
For CUPE members, if the proposed deal is confirmed and ratified, Finance Minister Tom Osborne guessed their severance payouts would start in the first quarter of 2019.
Negotiations continue between
government and other unions, with Osborne and the Liberal government as a whole making it clear they want severance off the books.
“I can say here, the total severance payout (budgeted) of about $600 million, based on preliminary numbers and calculations— we will come in under that figure. Considerably under that figure is my belief,” he told reporters. “Once we have all of the files calculated, we will be able to give you a more definitive
number.”
As for job losses, on budget day, the minister said government had shed 795 positions through attrition over the past two years, being full-time and permanent positions.
Including contract, temporary positions, he said Thursday, the number is at 1,200.
In his budget speech, he suggested about 5,000 public sector workers are currently eligible to retire.
“If you lay off, it’s your youngest
people that are laid off and the majority of those people will take their spouses and children and leave the province. That’s something I don’t want to see. We can deal with public service reduction through attrition. We’ve proven that over the last two years. I am absolutely dedicated to continuing in a very meaningful way a reduction in the size of the public service through attrition,” he said.