The City of Prince George is skewing the numbers when it comes to representing how the wages of municipal employees stack up to other communities, according to union leadership.
"There's over 100 communities across B.C.," said Gary Campbell, president of Canadian Union of Public Employees local 399. "Why are they just picking those 29?"
Campbell was reacting to a press release issued by the city Thursday listing the wages of City of Prince George labourers as the third-highest amongst a selection of other B.C. municipalities at $26.84 per hour.
"CUPE city workers have done very well for the past five years," said operations superintendent Bill Gaal. "The comparison shows their wages are near the top of the scale relative to the vast majority of their municipal counterparts."
Wages for Fernie and Kitimat labourers topped the list. There was no indication of how the two local union's other wage schedules for other job descriptions stack up to the comparison cities.
Members of CUPE 1048 and 399, representing inside and outside workers, respectively, have been without a collective agreement since the previous five-year contract expired Dec. 31, 2012.
Last week, collective bargaining negotiations broke down after a mediator failed to help the two sides reach an agreement.
The city has proposed a three-year agreement, with no wage increases in the first two years and a two per cent increase in the final year. This would still leave them among the top three for municipal employee wages, according to the city's comparison.
"The city is committed to meeting its economic challenges while keeping the burden on taxpayers as manageable as possible," said Gaal. "We're looking for an agreement that is fair to everyone."
According to the city's press release, there is no new money for the first two years of the contract but the employers are "willing to reallocate some existing sick leave accruals and other cost items within the collective agreement in order to better meet priorities for CUPE members."
CUPE's last proposal was a two per cent increase for each of the contract's three years, said Campbell.
"Our gains that we made in our last contract, that three per cent over those five years, was on par with what was happening across British Columbia and on other settlements. So it was nothing out of the ordinary," Campbell said, adding that the union's position is that having to accept zeros is unfair.
But he stressed that remuneration isn't the major obstacle to reaching an agreement.
"Of course there is a little bit of disagreement about wages, but our biggest concern is about our job security and our hours of work," said Campbell.
A negative environment regarding those two issues has been created due to a round of layoffs in January 2012, the core services review and the five employees laid off two weeks ago, according to Campbell.
"And the terminology the employer's been using in the bargaining is they want flexibility. And if they want flexibility, that takes trust and right now there is no trust because of the history that's been going on," he said.
The element of trust was further degraded with the city's addition of a labour lawyer to their bargaining unit this time around, Campbell added.
A return to the bargaining table is possible.
"We're not there yet, but we're trying," said Campbell.
In the meantime, discussions are ongoing to hammer out essential services in the event of job action, which the union leader said is a major task.
"I think it's probably a bigger job than a collective agreement," said Campbell. "Essential services have never been established in Prince George before, so we're starting right from ground zero, and it's a very big undertaking."
