Nine unionized employees at a Port Coquitlam credit union, who have been without a contract for two years, hit the picket line Tuesday morning.
The biggest issue at the Shaughnessy Station branch of Westminster Savings, said Movement of United Professionals (MoveUP) president David Black, is a new pension plan the company switched to as of July 1, 2018. Although employees hired before are able to stay on the previous plan, the new fund is an unsecured scheme that won’t benefit either the new employees and the current ones.
The previous defined plan, said Black, provides a guaranteed pension for employees when they retire, but the one the company is proposing puts all of the risk on the individual.
“If there’s not new people coming into the pension plan it puts the pension plan at risk because there are no new assets coming in,” said Black, whose union has about 12,000 members in western Canada. “It’s compounded by the fact the managers are keeping this pension plan for themselves, and if it’s good enough for them it should be good enough for [the union members].”
Westminster Savings spokesperson Jeff McDonald said the company believes it has made a fair and reasonable offer, including “a defined and generous pension plan.”
“It’s a new plan, it’s competitive, it’s a common offering by employers these days. It’s flexible, it’s portable and the feedback that we’ve received from staff on the plan has been positive,” said McDonald. “We’ve made a very good offer, fair and reasonable, to the union and they’ve chosen not to accept it and go out on strike.”
The walkout forced the credit union to close the branch. Members of the credit union, said McDonald, can bank online, call its member service centre or go to another Westminster Savings branch.
“It’s unfortunate the union took this tact because it means some inconvenience for some of our members,” said McDonald. “We regret the inconvenience to our members.”
Black said although wages have not been agreed to, if both sides can get past the pension issue an agreement could easily be reached. The previous contract for the branch employees expired Dec. 31, 2016. It is the only unionized branch operated by Westminster Savings. The union was certified when it was a branch of the Dogwood Credit Union before merging with Westminster.
ggranger@tricitynews.com
