Support staff ready to strike over pension proposal

Administrative and technical support workers at Dalhousie University say they're prepared to strike after the university refused to remove a contract proposal that would would see them lose a new federal Canada Pension Plan enhancement.

The 844 employees are members of Local 77 and 92 of the of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union.

“This employer is playing hardball and risking further disruption to Dal students already tumultuous academic year by trying to effectively steal from our members' pension plan,” NSGEU president Jason Maclean said in a release.

“The last thing our members want after the year we have all been through collectively is to have to strike, but the employer is forcing them to take this action to try and protect their retirement benefits.”

The two sides have been bargaining for seven months, and entered into unsuccessful conciliation on March 25 and 26. Members voted to reject the last contract offer from the university.

The union says members contribute six per cent of their pay toward Dalhousie pension plan premiums, with the employer responsible for the investment and funding of the plan.

But, it says, the university wants to change the pension agreement so that recent CPP enhancements that are supposed to go to the members are used to subsidize the university's responsibilities to the Dalhousie pension.

The union says the university also wants to change the plan so that indexation for current and future retirees would be substantially reduced and potentially eliminated.

The members of the local work at Dalhousie campuses in Halifax, and the Agricultural College locations in Truro and New Brunswick.

Dalhousie spokeswoman Janet Bryson said in an email that the university wants to get back to the bargaining table and is confident an agreement can be reached.

“The university is looking for the NSGEU to agree to the same cost of living and pension reform measures that the Dalhousie Faculty Association agreed to during recent negotiations,” she said. “These measures are designed to sustain the university's defined benefit pension plan ... “

She said the plan is facing financial pressures including a new pension funding regulation that will require millions of dollars a year in additional annual contributions, and new CPP rules that will result in extra contributions from both the employee and the employer by 2025.

It says it wants to ease that by adjusting the Dalhousie plan to account for the increases in retirement earnings members will now be receiving from the new enhancements to the CPP benefit. She said employees would continue to receive very close to the same total retirement income as they would have prior to the implementation of the new enhancement.