MORE BC Public Sector Workers Threaten to Strike as BCGEU Job Action Continues

After stating that they would issue a 72-hour strike notice at noon, the union stood at the picket line.

The Professional Employees Association, representing 1,200 licensed professionals, including agronomists, engineers, foresters, geoscientists, pharmacists, psychologists and veterinarians,

"We are ready to strike if necessary," said PEA labor relations official Melissa Moroz. said Mr. "We will work with the BCGEU to do that." Moroz declined to provide details on what a legal strike could look like.

} The union said it began negotiations with the Public Service on April 11 and reached a stalemate on May 16. The wage hikes proposed by the government failed to meet the rising cost of living. Union members voted 92% of him for her June strike.

The union wants her to raise her wages by 5% every three years, or adjust the cost of living, whichever is greater, she said, Moroz said. .

"We don't join labor unions to lower the cost of living," she said. According to Moroz, professional employees are rebuilding bridges and roads, monitoring BC's forests and agriculture, and providing care to vulnerable youth. Under the Labor Relations Act, Essential her workers do not go on strike, she said.

"The BCGEU is picketing liquor distribution plants," she said. “We will continue to build on that momentum and escalate job action.” , with 950 liquor distributors and wholesalers on strike. That means no liquor or cannabis products are distributed in her BC. A company that has plagued the hospitality industry.

The union's negotiating team rejected the Public Service Office's recent offer of a 10.99 percent pay increase and a 1 percent cost of living adjustment for her over three years. Employees also get a $2,500 singing bonus.

The Treasury Department stated that cost-of-living adjustments "will vary somewhat across the public sector depending on the average hourly wage of each bargaining unit, because the mandate provides additional lift for minimum-wage workers. It was hit hardest during periods of high inflation.”

Unions want inflation-linked wages. Nearly all of the sector's 400,000 unionized workers have contracts expiring this year.

The Ministry of Finance did not provide details on how the 10.99% wage increase proposed to BCGEU would hurt taxpayers.

But the wages of her 400,000 public sector employees in the state, he said, are $38.6 billion, or more than half the state's budget. A 1% increase in all unionized employees across the public sector would cost him about $311 million a year, according to the Treasury Department.

kderosa@postmedia.com

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