Last week, your bargaining team worked to come to an agreement with the employer. While some progress was made, the employer maintained several unacceptable concessions and ultimately walked away from the table, withdrawing their final proposal.
These include:
- Putting the flat rate of $20 if called to unlock a door after work hours into the collective agreement (this has always been a violation of the collective agreement).
- Removing your right to refuse overtime. Making overtime mandatory in non-emergency situations.
- Taking away severance pay when you resign.
The employer also wants three grievance steps before arbitration. Currently the Government of Nunavut – with about 3,900 unionized employees – has only two steps!
The union is holding onto the following proposals:
- Inuit cultural pursuits: 3 days paid and 2 days unpaid
- Wellness leave: 1 day of wellness leave that would come out of the sick leave bank.
- An additional $500 bilingual bonus for employees who are required to write in Inuktitut.
- A fair increase to standby pay.
- One workplace IQ day for employees and management to practice IQ principals together.
- Retroactivity for all current and former employees for all hours worked in the bargaining unit.
General Economic Increases
The employer did propose a higher percentage increase than they had previously.
However, this is about more than just money. Your time is your time and you should not be forced to work overtime in non-emergency situations.
You should be fairly compensated on regular worktime, overtime and standby.
We will have a meeting in early May to talk about next steps.
For more information about this update, contact the Nunavut Employees Union at communications@neu.ca
