Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp. reached a tentative agreement with its workers last week after a short strike.
The 470 Saskatchewan Government and General Employees Union members walked off the job June 21.
They settled three days later for a 5.5 percent wage increase over three years plus .25 percent in the third year, as well as other enhancements. The agreement is retroactive to Oct. 1, 2009.
Bargaining committee chair Allan Evans, who works in the Prince Albert office and is involved in a nearby family farm, said the negotiation wasn’t easy.
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“We are rural people, and rural people don’t believe in strikes,” he said. “We’re caught in a position where we do work for crop insurance and we had some things that we wanted to try to correct. I can understand why there’s negative comments from some people.”
Several farm organizations lined up against the workers, saying the time to strike is not during a wet spring when farmers need unseeded acreage and establishment benefit claims assessed.
The harshest words came from Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall, who a day after the workers went on strike said they had 24 hours to return to work or the government would take action.
“Your decision to launch strike action against the Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corp. at this moment – in the midst of an unprecedented flood crisis in many areas of Saskatchewan – is nothing short of appalling,” he wrote in a letter to union president Bob Bymoen.
The two sides returned to negotiations, but an agreement was not reached within the 24 hours and Wall responded by recalling the legislature for June 27. That decision was rescinded after the tentative agreement was announced.
Evans said workers would return to work immediately, but a vote likely wouldn’t be completed until after the Canada Day long weekend.
He said the bargaining committee decided to settle for less than the union wanted but slightly more than the government originally offered because it didn’t want to leave the matter in the hands of MLAs.
Agriculture minister Bob Bjornerud said producers would be relieved to hear of the deal.
“As of this morning we had about 6,500 unseeded acreage claims come in,” he said June 24.
Fewer than 100 had been processed.
