Unionised workers at Manitoba Public Insurance have voted to accept a new four-year contract with the Crown corporation, ending a strike that lasted more than two months.
The new contract will give workers wage increases of at least 13 per cent over four years, according to a press release issued Wednesday night by the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union.
“I think they’ve cleared the tunnel and now it feels more like they probably have a mountain to climb,” MGEU president Kyle Ross said later in an interview. “There’s such a backlog of work that they’re going to be very busy for quite some time.”
The agreement also includes a one-time signing bonus of $1,800 for full-time workers, which the MGEU said would be prorated for part-time workers.
The workers, who have been on strike since August 28, will also receive two weeks’ pay in recognition of the stalled negotiations between the October 3 provincial election and the swearing in of the new government.
MPI added in a news release Wednesday that all service and claims centres across the province, including the Property Damage Centre and the Contact Centre, will reopen at 1 p.m. Friday and remain open until 4:30 p.m.
The release added that appointments scheduled for 1 p.m. and after will continue, and those whose appointments were cancelled will be contacted to reschedule.
“I would say there’s some concern that they’re going to be faced with a lot of angry Manitobans when they get back to work and they open those stores,” Ross said. “I’m hopeful that Manitobans will recognise that they fought … to be treated fairly.”
The MGEU announced Tuesday night it had reached a tentative agreement with the public insurer, a day after rejecting a Crown corporation offer that included wage increases of 12.2 per cent over four years.
The agreement includes a three per cent increase for 2022 and 2023. Workers will receive a 2.9 per cent across-the-board increase with an additional 0.5 per cent withholding adjustment increase in 2024, and a 2.8 per cent across-the-board increase with a 0.5 per cent withholding adjustment increase in 2025, the MGEU release said Wednesday.
“These are good wage increases for people who deserve them,” Justice Minister Matt Wiebe, who is also the minister responsible for MPI, said at a press conference on Wednesday. “I especially want to thank the workers who spent weeks on the picket line demonstrating for their right to a fair deal.”
New maximum step for each pay grade
In addition, most workers will receive an additional 3.5 per cent wage increase over the life of the agreement from a new maximum step for each pay grade, the MGEU release said.
Ross explained that the additional step would expand the six-step wage scale that MPI employees go through as their tenure increases. Currently, an employee would be “topped out” at the sixth step of the scale, he said.
MPI made what it called its final offer in September. Under provincial labour law, either side could have requested binding arbitration to resolve the dispute from October 27 – 60 days after the start of the job action.
However, the two sides continued to negotiate after the new NDP government replaced most of MPI’s board of directors and gave the Crown corporation a mandate to resolve the labour dispute without binding arbitration.
“I have a lot of confidence in the board that’s been put in place at MPI, and there’s a lot of work to be done at MPI, so obviously the strike was our first priority, to end the strike and get people back to work,” Wiebe said. “But now, I think there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to make sure that MPI is delivering the services and being responsible and respectful to the taxpayers of Manitoba again.”
Wiebe added that the new agreement “really sets the tone” that the NDP is “willing to work with the working people of Manitoba to get fair deals, to make sure they feel included”.
“It was an adversarial relationship between the previous government and the workers, we want to say to the workers now that we’re willing to sit down with them and make sure they get fair wages,” he said.
