HALDIMAND – On Monday, employees of the County of Haldimand, on strike since early March, voted to accept the county’s latest contract offer and return to work.
“More than a quarter of the workers voted against this contract,” says Josie Marchesano, the president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4700, which represents the workers. “There is a lot of anger out there over the way the county tried to bargain through the media.”
Marchesano says the workers did come out of the strike with a better contract, including gains in sick leave, early retirement, hours of work and wages. Most employees will receive an 11 per cent wage increase over the term of the contract, which runs until December 2004.
A key issue for the union was wage harmonization following municipal amalgamation. “We could not continue to have workers making different rates of pay for doing the same job,” said Marchesano. “The employer has now agreed to use a job evaluation process to find solutions to the wage disparities. They have agreed to a deadline. The wage inequities should be solved within one year.”
-30-
For more information, contact:
Josie Marchesano, President, CUPE Local 4700
519-426-5480 x 281
Shannon McManus, Communications Officer
416-292-3999