City has no money left for negotiations: Malley
Published Monday October 6th, 2008
One city councillor is raising concerns about whether or not the city can afford to continue to negotiate with the union representing outside city workers.
Coun. Michael (Tanker) Malley said the city has spent approximately $200,000 on what he said were "solicitor costs associated with negotiations" with city unions. Most of that amount was for the services of Richard Petrie of the law firm Stewart McKelvey.
But Malley said the cookie jar is empty and there is no money left in the budget assigned to negotiations with the union.
"Here's what's interesting, we're going into October now, so they used all that money up for the year. Holy jeez, what's that telling you?" Malley said. "They used all the budget."
At the last regular meeting council voted to reject what it called a "revised" collective bargaining agreement with CUPE local 1387. Only Malley voted for the deal with councillors Rupert Bernard and Jason Harris not in attendance due to other commitments.
Mayor Gerry Cormier confirmed Wednesday Malley is correct with his figures and said there has been no discussion about the deal since Thursday's vote at the September regular council meeting.
"Nothing yet. No meetings since. I haven't heard a thing since the night we met," Cormier said. "I think right now we took a decision now it's up to the union, what are they going to do. Are they going to go for a vote or what? I don't know."
The agreement seemed like a done deal in July with city council and the union ratifying it after the union had twice served their 24 hour notice to strike. The deal, which would officially run from Jan. 1, 2007 to Dec. 31, 2009, gave the union a two per cent pay increase, retroactive to the beginning of the contract.
It also increased the co-pay from $5 to $7.50. That issue was the most contentious, with the city insisting it had to increase. Last Thursday CUPE representative Pat Roy said the current issue had nothing to do with either salary or benefits, but the work "maintenance" in the department titles.
Put together at the last minute and discussed verbally, the union did not think the word was in the contract, while the city did. Malley said the deal shouldn't hinge on a single word.
"Here's what's sad … transportation is your water, your sewer, your streets. It has nothing to do with recreation. Recreation is recreation, your ballfields, your leisure services for your seniors and your different programs for the kids. That's your recreations. They wanted it under two and I said I don't support that," the councillor said.
The issue revolves around how employees can be assigned and how the city manages employees who are assigned to recreation and those who are assigned to public works.
Malley said the wording shouldn't matter because the city has the right to manage its employees.
"What's interesting is every contract that I've seen, it always has in it management has the right to manage. So you can tell your employees where they're scheduled to work. It's always been there," he said.
Cormier said he expects the city will meet soon to discuss the issue. He also he isn't too worried about the city's negotiations budget — yet.
"It's not a concern right at the moment because I'm hoping things will be resolved soon but if it comes to that we'll look at it at that time but no for the moment we're just going to wait and see what happens," he said.
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