Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 07/01) - Members of the Public Service Alliance voted in overwhelming numbers to accept agreements offered them by the federal government.

The agreements call for across-the-board increases of 3.2 per cent (retroactive to 2000), 2.8 per cent (retroactive to summer, 2001) and 2.5 per cent (effective next year).

PSAC members are divided in four groups, according to their area of labour. Each voted independently on separate agreements, but the lowest approval percentage was 79 per cent.

All figures are for votes across Canada; regionally-specific statistics are not gathered by PSAC.

The agreement will affect 350 workers in the NWT and Nunavut, and an additional 400 in the Yukon.

"The membership across Canada has stated where they stand on it, that it's an acceptable and fair contract," said PSAC regional representative Dolly Ablitt.

Repeated talks had continued to produce no fruit until this fall, when two of the tables reached a negotiated agreement. Those two tables recommended ratifying the agreement.

The remaining two tables took "imposed terms of settlement" to the membership.

They recommended rejecting the agreement.

In the end, the "imposed" settlements received less voter approval by several percentage points than the negotiated terms, but still passed by huge margins.

"When all of the action happened on Sept. 11 it really changed where the members were coming from," said Ablitt.

"People want to have security, they want to know when they'll be working and how much they'll be working for. It's not a time for uncertainty, and with a strike there's always uncertainty."