Winnipeg's largest union calls for mayor's inner circle to pressure city for deal
City of Winnipeg said it proposed a new offer on Thursday, hopes union will accept before job action taken
Winnipeg's largest union is closing in on the first general municipal workers strike since 1919 and said if the city wants to avoid it, the ball is in their court.
"I think that nobody really realizes the extent of the magnitude of us going on strike. I think that's going to have a significant impact," CUPE Local 500 president Gord Delbridge told reporters at a news conference on Thursday.
On Wednesday night, the union sent a message to its 5,000 members, who work across a range of city services, announcing a strike deadline of 11:59 p.m. on Oct. 11.
Members voted 93 per cent in favour of a strike mandate in July and CUPE opened its strike headquarters on Sept. 12.
The union has wanted to get a deal done for a year-and-a-half, a frustrated Delbridge told reporters Thursday.
Negotiations on a new contract began March 10, 2021 — a month after the previous one expired.
It was not CUPE's choice for a potential strike to occur during a municipal election campaign, Delbridge said.
"Our members have been without a pay increase in some very challenging times. It's taken by far too long [and] our choice would have been for this to be resolved a year ago," he said.
"We are asking the city to come back to the table and put an end to this. The ball is in their court."
He called on members of city council's executive policy committee, also known as the mayor's inner circle, "to provide administration with some directive to resolve this."
"Bring it forward to get a deal to stop this."
It's not clear exactly who is at the table and who still needs to arrive.
The city said it presented CUPE with a settlement offer on Thursday, which includes general wage increases "well-above" those included in the offer that the CUPE bargaining committee presented members in July, and additional money to be used for wage adjustments as needed.
Michael Jack, Winnipeg's chief administrative officer, said in a news release that he hopes the union's negotiation committee will accept the latest offer and take it to their membership before any job action is taken.
The city said it proposed an agreement that would allow CUPE employees in certain important positions to continue working to provide essential services in the event of a labour disruption but, to date, CUPE hasn't agreed to sign it.
Delbridge said union members — who work for 311, recreational services, water and waste, traffic and other municipal services — want to continue to serve Winnipeggers, but "must be compensated fairly in order to do so."
The union has repeatedly said the main sticking point is wages. Delbridge wouldn't say how far apart CUPE and the city's negotiators are, but noted the last percentage increases offered by city, over a four-year term, were 1.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 1.75.
That offer was made in July and turned down by the union.
"We're one of the lowest-paid civic bargaining groups of any in the city, one of the big bargaining groups. And that's a serious concern," Delbridge said in July.
On Thursday, he said the union hopes to at least negotiate an essential services agreement to keep certain providers on the job in the event of a strike, "but they're going to be working on a skeleton crew.
"And we're not going to agree to scab labour and contracting out," he added.
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