September 26, 2019

REGINA—Unifor negotiators are working down to the wire but time is running out for the Scott Moe government to make a fair offer to nearly 5,000 Crown workers with strike mandates.

“It’s not a hard formula: show Crown workers the respect they deserve and we can avert province-wide job action,” said Jerry Dias, Unifor National President. “Without a serious offer, Scott Moe will engineer service disruption that could have been avoided.”

Unifor’s bargaining committees will meet today with the employers to review the latest offer and decide whether or not to serve 48 hours notice of job action. Unifor members at SaskTel have already served notice and if a collective agreement cannot be bargained this weekend, job action at SaskTel is set to begin at 12:01 a.m. on September 30.

Unifor says that Premier Scott Moe signalled that wage freezes are not acceptable when he gave himself and MLAs a 2.3% pay increase earlier this year.

“If 2.3% is good enough for Scott Moe, surely it’s good enough for the thousands of Crown workers that make public utilities and services great,” said Gavin McGarrigle, Unifor’s Western Regional Director. “Job action at seven Crowns is not inevitable. The government and Crown corporations have the ability to bargain a fair agreement, but time is running out.”

For more information, please contact Unifor Communications Representative Ian Boyko at [email protected] or 778-903-6549 (cell).