Yellowknife city workers still haven't voted on new collective agreement

Yellowknife city council gave first reading on Thursday to a bylaw that would finalize a new collective agreement with striking city workers, but second and third reading can't happen until union members vote on the tentative deal — and that hasn't happened yet. 

At a city council meeting Thursday afternoon, Mayor Rebecca Alty said council will meet again at 8:30 a.m. Friday, then recess until after members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) Local X0345 vote on the proposed agreement. 

"We can't move to second and third reading until the membership vote on it, and the membership hasn't voted on it yet," she said. 

Council will reconvene after the vote, at a time that will be determined tomorrow.

'We're still in the dark'

It's been four days since the City of Yellowknife announced it had come to a tentative agreement with the PSAC, which represents a majority of city workers. 

City council was initially going to give first, second and third reading to the tentative agreement on Tuesday. That meeting was postponed until Wednesday, then rescheduled for Thursday. Now second and third reading have been delayed again.

In a press release Thursday afternoon, the city explained why the meeting date changed so many times.

It said the city is required to give 48 hours notice of a public meeting, but the estimated time at which the collective agreement would be ratified and ready for council authorization changed several times, "hence the cancellation and rescheduling of meetings."

Details of the tentative agreement haven't been made public.

According to one city worker on the picket line Thursday, members are still waiting to find out what's in the tentative deal.

"We haven't seen the collective agreement that's proposed to us yet," said Daryl Snow. "So yeah, we're still in the dark."

Snow said union members are waiting for the city and the union to iron out details of a back-to-work agreement. 

"As soon as they ratify the back-to-work protocols, we'll be voting — hopefully that'll be tomorrow morning," he said.

Snow said he and the others picketing outside city hall were feeling upbeat, but also "antsy" to get details of the agreement.

"And I'm sure the public is getting antsy to get back into their facilities and get back to the dump and get rid of their cardboard and whatnot," he said.

Around 205 unionized city workers have been on strike for five weeks. The contract dispute has centred on wages. 

The union's most recent proposal included a 3.75 per cent wage increase for 2022 and another 3.75 per cent increase for 2023. 

The city hasn't publicly moved from its initial offer of two per cent for 2022 and two per cent for 2023.

PSAC did not immediately respond to CBC's request for an interview.

City facilities won't open right away

In the Thursday press release, the city said that once the collective agreement is ratified by union members and approved by council, the strike and lockout will be over and staff can return to work.

But city facilities won't re-open right away.

The city said it needs to make sure the right number of staff are scheduled to work and that other regulatory requirements are met first.

"This preparatory work cannot happen overnight and will not take the same amount of time for each facility," reads the release.