Pact reached with health professionals and group home workers, Kennedy says
The Newfoundland and Labrador government said Friday it has reached a deal with two unions, including the association that represents dieticians, therapists and other professionals.
The tentative agreements with the Association of Allied Health Professionals and the Canadian Union of Public Employees Group Homes will see raises of more than 20 per cent over four years, Finance Minister Jerome Kennedy said.
The agreement will see the AAHP and CUPE members receive an eight per cent raise in the first year, followed by three consecutive four per cent raises in the subsequent years. With compounding, the raise will elevate wages by 21.5 per cent.
AAHP had concerns
A memo posted on the AAHP's website dated Dec. 10 indicates the union's leadership had concerns with a deadline imposed by the provincial government on all unions that had yet to reach agreements. It warned that due to economic uncertainty the province's wage offer of 20 per cent would be withdrawn if the offer wasn't accepted by Dec. 31.
According to the update posted by AAHP executive director Sharon King, the province's wage offer was part of a package that contained contract language that the union felt was concessionary and "may cause us problems over the next four years."
The update said the union made extreme attempts to get some of the language removed or reworded without success.
"Government has been very clear in their message to us — we cannot take just the 20 per cent over four years — it has to be as part of a package that includes other, not so desirable, language. We are over a barrel — we are not prepared to risk losing the 20 per cent salary increase for our members — but to do so we will have swallow a couple of bitter pills on language," King said in the update.
When asked about the update, Kennedy called the government's offer a fair one, and any language the union might deem concessionary was in fact negotiated by CUPE in the first agreement signed this year.
"I'm not sure what Miss King is talking about. If I were in her position today, I'd be happy to be the recipient of such a generous offer. So you will have to ask her that," he said.
When CBC contacted her Friday afternoon, Sharon King didn't want to discuss the update or what those concessions might be. She said the deal has been accepted and the details will soon be shared with her members.
The Newfoundland and Labrador Nurses' Union has balked at government's deadline, as well as its wage offer. Nurses will start voting in January on whether to give the union a strike mandate, and the union is holding for now to a bargaining position of demanding 12 per cent more per year, over two years.
The Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees, by far the largest union within the public service, is still negotiating with government.
The AAHP represents 800 professionals, including pharmacists, occupational therapists and audiologists. The CUPE Group Homes represents 100 staff of group and transition homes.