More than 900 unionized members working for the city of Coquitlam will vote next week on a new collective agreement.
The ratification meeting for CUPE Local 386 civic staff will happen next Thursday night in Coquitlam; as of yesterday, they had yet to see the terms of the proposed contract.
The workers have been without a deal since Dec. 31, 2011, making them among the last civic employees in Metro Vancouver to be without a new contract.
CUPE Local 386 president Ken Landgraff was not available for comment Thursday; however, deputy city manager John DuMont confirmed a memorandum of agreement had been reached last month.
DuMont was not able to give details about the tentative contract.
The ratification vote will come three months after Port Coquitlam workers with CUPE Local 498 green-lighted their new collective agreement that sees a 6.75% wage increase over four years, effective Jan. 1, 2012, and ending Dec. 31, 2015 (a call to Local 498 president Brian Savage was not returned by The Tri-City News' print deadline).
And last December, Port Moody city workers with CUPE Local 825 also OK'd their new deal that amounts to 6.75% over four years - the same wage hike as in New Westminster, whose unionized staff inked their contract last summer, making it the first municipality in Metro Vancouver to reach a new collective agreement and thereby setting the bar for regional negotiations.
Most cities in Metro Vancouver abandoned collective bargaining through the now-defunct Metro Vancouver Labour Relations Bureau after signing their last contracts with their CUPE locals.
The issue of unionized workers' pay was raised during the November 2011 civic elections at all-candidates' meetings in the Tri-Cities, with many Coquitlam council incumbents and challengers vowing to take a "hard line" against rising wages at city hall.
The historical pattern is that salary hikes for unionized workers are also extended to city managers.
