THUNDER BAY — A provincial arbitration board has decided on the terms of a new collective agreement between the City of Thunder Bay and 230 full-time and part-time workers at the Pioneer Ridge long-term care home.
The three-year deal is retroactive to July 1, 2019 and expires on June 30, 2022.
It provides for wage increases of 1.5 per cent in each of the first two years, and 1.6 per cent on July 1 of this year.
Unifor national representative Andy Savela says the pay hikes are better than the city's last offer, which he recalls was 1.2 per cent.
He's critical of the city's strategy during contract bargaining.
"In my view – and I expressed it to them – they made a huge error in terms of moving this to arbitration. The reality is, you look at settlement data, wage rate surveys, at what people are negotiating and arbitrators are awarding, and that should form your mandate," he said.
However, the labour nominee to the three-member arbitration board issued a partial dissenting opinion about the board's decision regarding wages, saying "more significant improvement was due...particularly so given the present staffing circumstances in the long-term care sector arising during the pandemic."
He added that increases closer to those negotiated by Unifor elsewhere in Ontario "would have been an appropriate outcome."
TBNewswatch reached out to city officials for comment, but has not yet received a response.
The arbitration panel also ruled on a contentious issue related to sick leave.
Savela explained that the old agreement didn't allow for a grievance to be filed if an employee was denied short-term or long-term disability, forcing any challenges to be dealt with in court.
He said the union leadership was willing to accept the city's request to make denials grievable, but the members were opposed.
"We see pluses and minuses to both. I think the courts are more generous in terms of the awards, and arbitrators maybe not so much, but maybe arbitrators might have a better understanding of the issues. We pointed out to our members the advantages and disadvantages, and they wanted to maintain the ability to go through the courts if they were denied," Savela said.
However, since the union bargaining team itself supported the change to the sick leave clause, the arbitration panel agreed to include it in the new contract.
In its decision, it noted "there is no dispute between the parties that arbitration boards give a great deal of weight to recommendations of this nature, and accordingly we have done the same."
