PSAC has 700 workers in North
Dave Sullivan
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (May 30/01) - Federal government employees have voted themselves a strike mandate if conciliation fails.
Jean Francois Des Lauriers, northern vice-president of the Public Service Allaince of Canada, gives conciliation a 50 per cent chance.
Conciliation is scheduled to start June 11. If the talks fail, there could be a strike by mid-August.
About 64 per cent of voting members favoured the strike mandate. Workers' contracts expired last summer, and talks broke down about six weeks ago, Des Lauriers said.
Two per cent raises in each of the past four years means the federal civil service "is not an employer of choice. They want the best and the brightest but if you want to recruit good people you have to pay them," he said.
Des Lauriers said the average federal civil servant salary is about $32,000 and the increase being offered is unfair compared to 8.7 per cent increases plus bonuses offered to senior civil servants.
In NWT, Nunavut and the Yukon, over 700 PSAC members work in administrative, technical, education and library positions.
