Health unit strike may be over; After 10 weeks on the picket line, program
assistants vote today on tentative agreement;
Owen Sound Sun Times (ON)
Fri 11 Jul 2008
Page: A1
Section: News
Byline: BY DENIS LANGLOIS, SUN TIMES STAFF
Seventy days after first stepping onto the picket line, striking
office and clerical workers have reached a tentative agreement with the Grey
Bruce Health Unit.
The agreement was signed early Thursday morning after a 15-hour
marathon negotiating session. Both sides still need to ratify the deal before it
becomes official.
Linda Owens, spokeswoman for Local 276 of the Ontario Public
Service Employees Union, said details of the settlement will not be disclosed
until after the striking workers get the chance to ratify it. The members are to
meet this morning to weigh that decision.
"We did come to a good deal," Owens said in an interview
Thursday morning. "We're very happy with it. It's what we wanted. I can't give
figures because we haven't ratified here, but I will be able to give more
details tomorrow."
The 26 office and clerical employees have been on strike since
May 1 in a fight for higher wages and improved benefits. The workers, whose
salaries top out at $35,836, initially requested 4.7 per cent annual increases
for the next three years.
The health unit offered three per cent annual pay hikes, with an
additional one per cent in the final six months and a signing bonus.
The strikers resoundingly rejected an offer presented by the
health unit earlier this month which would have boosted pay by three per cent in
each of the next three years and an additional one per cent in the final year.
The union went into that meeting with a request for four per cent increases in
each year of the three-year contract.
June Van Bastelaar, a member of the health unit's negotiating
team, said efforts are underway to arrange a meeting for Monday to give board of
health members an opportunity to examine the tentative agreement and decide
whether to ratify it.
She said the agency's negotiating team is hopeful both sides
will agree to the settlement.
"Hopefully people will be returning to work and the healing
process can begin," said Van Bastelaar, the board provincial appointee for Bruce
County.
Owens said the two sides entered the latest negotiation meeting
at 10 a. m. Wednesday at the Days Inn. It wrapped up in the wee hours of
Thursday morning.
"We're all very optimistic that this will be (over)," Owens said
of the strike.
Four members of the health unit's bargaining team and medical
officer of health Dr. Hazel Lynn met with the OPSEU team. The meeting -- and
Lynn's presence -- were at the request of the union, Van Bastelaar said.
Members of the office and clerical unit work in several health
unit programs including vaccine delivery, rabies and bird flu, safe water,
sexual health and immunization clinics. |
