Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Inuvik (June 21/02) - The strike between the telephone company and its workers has extended into the fourth week, with both sides placing offers, but negotiations are still far apart.

Cary Gryba, the unit chairperson and spokesperson for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) said NorthwesTel has rejected their latest offer and has taken the bargaining into the media -- something both sides promised not to do.

Gryba said a NorthwesTel advertisement that ran in last Thursday's Drum contains "incorrect and misleading information."

"The problem with it is that it's not clearly explained at all -- it's very misleading," Gryba said.

"Another component of that ad is a subtle threat that basically says, 'If this labour dispute drags on, we're going to have to raise your local access rates.'"

"That is just reprehensible behaviour, in my view."

He says there were rallies held in Iqaluit and Whitehorse and strikers are enjoying support of other unions and the public at large.

"People are determined," he said.

"They are not willing to take less than what is fair."

The union has been without a contract since Jan. 1 but has been negotiating since October 2001.

NorthwesTel's director of public affairs, Anne Kennedy Grainger, said last Friday's offer made by the company was a better deal than was previously offered, but what they received back from the union was higher.

"Their last one was higher than the one they had made the previous week," Kennedy Grainger said.

Since the union's last offer there have been no talks between the two sides and Kennedy Grainger says the company has called on the government appointed mediator to step in.

"We have been in touch with the conciliator, but that requires the consent of both parties," she said.

"If there is an opportunity, we would have no objection to his involvement."

For now, she says the company will wait and see.