Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 08/01) - Workers for one of the city's biggest employers, the federal government, may soon be on strike.

If a mini-demonstration here Tuesday is any indication, federal employees are not prepared to accept a government offer of a two per cent annual wage increase.

Standing in front of the post office, workers were offering passers-by free cartons of two per cent milk and bags of peanuts to protest the government's offer.

"We're the lowest-paid probably anywhere in Canada when you take into consideration provincial and municipal governments," said Jean-Francois Des Lauriers, Public Service Alliance of Canada regional executive vice-president. Wages are the main issue in negotiations that began in January and affect 200 federal employees in Yellowknife and 700 through the Yukon, NWT and Nunavut.

The union wants to make up for a wage freeze that was in place during most of the 1990s, Des Laurier said, and is looking for a five per cent annual wage increase.

The union contends the government's offer of two per cent will not be enough to keep up with inflation and points to the 20-40 per cent pay increase MPs voted themselves earlier this year as an example of the double standard the treasury board is setting in negotiations.

Roughly 150 program managers and clerical staff out in Yellowknife have been in a legal strike position since July 22.

Negotiations for the workers broke off July 18, when a conciliation board, which was to help union and Treasury Board negotiators find common ground, failed to come up with any recommendations for settling the impasse. The remaining employees, among 140,000 public service workers across the country that may be part of a strike, are covered under different collective agreements currently under negotiation in Ottawa.

Des Laurier said any strike action would be taken collectively, after the other bargaining efforts conclude. The soonest that would occur, he said, was late August or early September.

In a submission to the board during the conciliation process, the Treasury Board indicated that the 58,813 program managers and clerical staff nationwide earn an average of $41,025 annually.