City council cannot ask its unions to freeze city employees’ pay during the pandemic since it would be accused of negotiating in bad faith, the mayor says.
Pay for transit staff jumped 1.5 per cent on Jan. 1, 2021, and will increase 1.75 per cent on Jan. 1, 2022, during the recent round of negotiations. Meanwhile, out-of-scope employees — including members of city administration — saw their pay increase 1.50 per cent starting Jan. 1, 2021, and 1.75 per cent from Jan. 1, 2022.
City council approved the pay raises during its most recent meeting.
These negotiations were started before the pandemic began, and since council gave city administration the mandate to reach an agreement with the unions, to now ask for a pay freeze would only lead to accusations of negotiating in bad faith, Mayor Fraser Tolmie explained during a media scrum recently. This would then lead to council being “thrown and dragged through the mud.”
“We set out a mandate. We did a respectful mandate and we followed through on that. And so that’s the things we have to do,” he said, noting that “pound for pound,” Moose Jaw’s salary levels are on the low end compared to other communities of similar size.
“In order to keep people and actually achieve a good job, we have to pay them a fair wage,” Tolmie added. “That is the philosophy that we’ve moved forward with.”
While council was able to reopen its budget last spring to achieve a tax hike of zero per cent, it’s not possible to reopen negotiations and ask for a compromise since council gave city administration a mandate, the mayor reiterated. Since the municipality faced accusations of negotiating in bad faith with the firefighters’ union around 2016, council can’t fall into that trap again. It would also be challenging to go back and renegotiate.
“It’s just a bit of timing in negotiations and obviously the time we’re in right now,” Tolmie added. “It’s a fair question (about asking the unions to compromise), but because of the legalities behind it, we have to follow through.”
The next regular council meeting is Monday, Feb. 1.
