Labour board sets Hydro wage bump, pandemic bonus By: Carol Sanders Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Thursday, Aug. 5, 2021

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This article was published 04/08/2021 (1242 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After two months of rotating strikes, followed by an application for arbitration in the spring, Manitoba Hydro workers have been awarded a slight wage increase and a special payment for those exposed to extra hazards and hardships during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s a “significant improvement” from the provincially owned power utility’s final offer and recognizes workers’ “front-line contributions to the public,” the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2034 said in a message to its 2,300 members. They’d been without a deal since Jan. 1, 2019.

The union alleged the rotating strikes are the result of interference by the Progressive Conservative government in the collective bargaining process.

The Pallister administration has been pushing for public-sector collective agreements to be capped at zero per cent increases in the first two years, followed by increases no higher than 0.75 per cent and one per cent in years 3 and 4.

After reaching an impasse with the employer, the Hydro workers staged rotating strikes.

They ended in May, when, after 60 days, the union was able to apply to the labour board for an alternative dispute resolution process, as allowed by Manitoba law.

The board has now imposed a 1.5 per cent wage increase, effective Jan. 1, 2019, 0.5 per cent effective Jan. 1, 2020, and a 1.5 per cent raise effective Jan. 1 of this year.

“We wish we could’ve got the result bargaining in good faith with the employer,” business manager Mike Espenell said Thursday. “We’ve, historically, had good relations with the employer.”

The board-imposed deal includes a one-time COVID-19 payment to IBEW members whose work can’t be done from home — roughly 95 per cent — for being exposed to additional “risks, hazards and hardships.”

Each will receive $1 per hour worked from March 20, 2020, to July 31, 2021 — up to a maximum of $1,250 per employee.

“Throughout this whole period, they’ve had to deal with lots of things,” Espenell said.

Impacted workers have dealt with shifts changing on a weekly basis, for instance, and been required to stay longer than expected at remote workplaces to maintain critical assets when COVID-19 outbreaks occurred, he said.

The new agreement expires Feb. 4, 2022, and then it’s back to the bargaining table.

“We hope next time there isn’t this level of interference,” said Espenell.

However, next time, labour faces a shifting landscape under new legislation the PCs plan to pass this fall.

Bill 16 (Labour Relations Amendment Act) would eliminate the right of striking workers to access binding arbitration after 60 days of strike action or lockout. The legislation introduced by the Tories in October was one of five bills the Opposition NDP selected to delay passage of until fall.

If the bill had passed in the spring, and prevented Manitoba Hydro workers from applying for arbitration after 60 days, the recent labour action could’ve been worse, said Espenell.

“I believe the strike, in that case, would’ve been very difficult,” he said. “It would’ve been a lot more disruptive.”

The Progressive Conservative government has said Bill 16’s proposed changes will better balance the rights of union members, unions and employers, and make unions more accountable and transparent. No other Canadian jurisdiction’s labour law allows one party to force the other into binding arbitration for subsequent agreements, it has said.

The bill would allow an employer to fire an employee for “strike-related misconduct” — even if the employee has not been convicted of a criminal offence — and would require only 40 per cent of workers (instead of the current 50 per cent) to call for a union decertification vote.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca