City Ratifies New Deal With Outside Workers

Saint John council has ratified a new five-year collective agreement with the city’s outside workers, represented by CUPE Local 18.

Council voted 8-2 in favour of the agreement during a special council meeting Thursday. Councillors David Merrithew and Sean Casey voted against it.

City manager John Collin said the new agreement will result in net savings for the city of around $7.6 million.

“These were difficult negotiations but certainly, from my perspective, the negotiations were completely appropriate and done in the most professional of manner,” said Collin.

The deal includes a one per cent wage increase in 2020 and a wage freeze for 2021 and 2022. Increases would be tied to the council’s wage escalation policy in 2022 and 2023, which is forecast to be 1.75 per cent.

Up to 43 positions could be cut through attrition over the course of the five-year agreement, a reduction of 15.5 per cent.

But Merrithew, who also chairs the city’s finance committee, said a minimum staffing level of 235 people is still unacceptable.

“I asked staff if we could negotiate, for example, contracting out something as big as maybe our garbage and so on. We need more flexibility to do something like that and we still don’t have it,” he said.

“No one can tell me that we wouldn’t be better off without a minimum manning clause.”

Merrithew said he also has a problem with the signing bonus, which will see workers receive between $2,000 and $6,500, depending on how long they have been employed. It is expected to cost the city around $1.8 million in 2020.

Also in opposition of the agreement was Mayor Don Darling, who said it does not address affordability, flexibility and productivity.

“I don’t support this deal; the deal simply, in my view, regarded as good enough to ratify. Good enough is no longer good enough for taxpayers,” said Darling, who was not allowed to vote.

“The deal offers accountability in wage increase but it does not address the fact that we pay significantly more than the private work for comparable work in Saint John.”

Similar to Merrithew, Darling raised concerns about the signing bonus for workers and the minimum staffing level, among other things.

The mayor also claimed the city’s bargaining strategy was leaked to the union and that some councillors met with them during negotiations.

“This is not just a negotiation between administration and a union, it’s a negotiation where an administration has the expectation to bargain to the best of their ability in an equal environment to the union. We know that didn’t happen,” said Darling.

While other councillors also raised some concerns about the deal, most felt it was good overall for everyone involved.

“It’s not the greatest deal in the world, but it’s not the worst deal. I think it’s good for everybody,” said Coun. Blake Armstrong.

Coun. John McKenzie said negotiators on both sides of the bargaining table deserve a pat on the back.

McKenzie said there would have been no winners had the workers gone on strike or been locked out.

“I think that a negotiated settlement where, I guess in my opinion, there’s been an awful lot of concessions given on both sides, that’s the way it should be,” said McKenzie.

The union represents workers who perform services ranging from wastewater collection and treatment to the distribution of safe, clean drinking water, mowing of parks and ballfields, to plowing streets and patching of potholes, to the maintenance of the city’s fleet of vehicles and equipment, to the collection of garbage

Union members voted in favour of the collective agreement late Wednesday. We have reached out to CUPE for comment.