Two labour disputes in Saskatchewan appear to be nearing settlement.
Last week, health workers who are members of the Health Sciences Association of Saskatchewan and had been staging rotating walkouts across the province since May 9, reached a tentative agreement with the Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations.
And, a mediator’s report on the dispute between the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation and the bargaining committee of the Saskatchewan School Boards Association and the government said progress had been made and a collective agreement could now be drafted.
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The 3,000 health workers, including addictions counsellors, dietitians and speech therapists, had been without a contract since April 1, 2009, and the agreement is retroactive to that date.
HSAS president Cathy Dickson said the tentative agreement restored an eight percent wage differential for 565 employees in senior positions and a 16.6 percent differential for those who obtained higher education.
“While this agreement provides rural EMS workers with the first increase in their stand-by wage rate in 12 years (from $4.12 to $5 per hour), we hold the view that this wage rate should be increased to at least 85 percent of the Saskatchewan minimum wage to keep rural emergency services from continuing to lose qualified staff,” Dickson said in a release announcing the agreement.
Overall, all workers will see a wage increase of 7.5 percent over four years. They had asked for 14.5 percent in their most recent proposal.
Meanwhile, mediator Richard Hornung said teachers should get the 5.5 percent wage hike over three years that the government had proposed, but he also said there should be market adjustments to bring Saskatchewan pay in line with the western Canadian average.
The teachers entered mediation asking for 16 percent over three years.
Market adjustments would be based on average salaries in the four western provinces and see teachers at different levels in the teachers’ pay grid receive different percentages, ranging from 5.01 percent at the minimum and 3.34 percent at the maximum pay scale.
Both parties agreed the average minimum salary for a class four teacher, as of 2010, is $49,477, while the maximum is $76,611.
Hornung also agreed with the teachers’ recommendation that the salary grid drop to 11 steps from 15.
Neither bargaining committee would comment after the July 6 report was released, but a joint statement said the report would form the basis of an agreement.
The last teachers’ contract expired Aug. 31, 2010. The 12,000 teachers walked out for three days to press their demands but agreed to suspend any job action once the mediator was appointed.
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