Nunavut Employees Union Government of Nunavut Bargaining Update #1 February 2019
Please see below for the PDFs of this text as well as the Proposed Non-Monetary Package presented to the Government of Nunavut (GN) in English (EN) and Inuktitut (INK)
This is the first of several Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC)/Nunavut Employees Union (NEU) bargaining updates you will receive concerning the current round of bargaining with the Government of Nunavut (GN). Your Bargaining Team is committed to keeping you informed on developments in bargaining over the coming weeks and months. To that end, you will receive updates like this one after each Bargaining Session.
The Team began preparing for bargaining in early October of last year, shortly after it was elected at the PSAC/NEU Bargaining Conference. In December 2018, a two-day caucus was held in Iqaluit to discuss preliminary proposals based on NEU Member input and priorities. Since then, the Team has worked to finalize the Union’s proposals and to establish dates for bargaining.
The first session of bargaining took place in Iqaluit over four days, between January 15 and 18, 2019. As is the normal practice, the PSAC/NEU Team tabled its non-monetary proposals and reserved proposals with monetary implications for a later point in bargaining. In the opening statement to the employer (GN), the Team highlighted the themes animating the Union’s proposals: the vulnerable state of the GN’s part-time workers; food security and declining purchasing power as well as a thinly stretched full-time workforce.
While these difficult issues have yet to be tackled, the Team is pleased to report that the first Bargaining Session with the GN was both positive and productive. Both parties began by committing to bargaining in good faith to reach a Collective Agreement and the exchanges that followed during the week were consistent in tone and spirit with that commitment.
Clearly, these are the early days of bargaining, and we have yet to deal with many difficult issues. But we can all hope that positive tenor of this first session continues into the coming sessions.
The next Bargaining Session is scheduled for the week of February 18, 2019 in Rankin Inlet. We look forward to issuing another Bargaining Update at that time.
In solidarity,
Your PSAC/NEU Bargaining Team
Noel Collins; Simon Doiron; Linda Hunter; Ruth Kaluraq; Abraham Qammaniq; Rick Roberts; Bill Fennell (NEU President); Darren Pacione (PSAC Researcher) and John Eustace (PSAC Negotiator).
