BCGEU job action expands as pressure builds to reignite negotiations

Job action involving members of the BC General Employees’ Union (BCGEU) is expected to ramp up Tuesday.

Workers will be off the job in a growing number of communities, including Surrey, Victoria, Nanaimo, Kamloops, Williams Lake, Kelowna, Cranbrook, Nelson, Fort St. John and Smithers.

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“Those sites represent approximately 1,000 BCGEU members that will be joining their colleagues on the picket lines to try and bring the government back to the table for a fair deal,” Union President Paul Finch tells 1130 NewsRadio.

Finch has said the goal is to limit the impact of the job action on the public, and confirmed the strike at this time will not affect liquor or cannabis distribution sites. But added that could change the longer the action drags on.

“We’re not broadcasting our strike strategy. We’ve said that we’re not ruling out anything.”

Finch says, “No other union in the public sector has a deal right now,” adding the union has been trying to dispel any misinformation.

“There were rumours there’s another deal [but] what government announced was a concept or framework towards something, but nothing that’s been disclosed or released to the membership of any other union.”

In a statement, the B.C. Ministry of Finance said the government had proposed a 4.5 per cent compensation increase over two years, made up of both general wage increases and cost-of-living allowances.

It said the union wanted 15.75 per cent, adding the BCGEU’s previously stated request for an 8.25 per cent wage increase “only tells part of the story.”

It puts the ongoing annual cost of the BCGEU’s wage and other compensation proposals at $437 million.

The statement said the 2022 contract plus the BCGEU’s current request would amount to a 30 per cent compensation increase over five years, while the government’s proposed 18.75 per cent increase slightly exceeds projected inflation of 18.7 per cent in the same period.

Adding, the union’s 2025 proposals for the next two years total 15.75 per cent, “or 3.25 times higher than the estimated 4.8 per cent inflation rate over the same two-year period.”

“To put that in perspective, if the rest of the unionized public sector in B.C. received the same increases, it would represent an annual ongoing cost to provincial taxpayers of $6.6 billion.”

Finch said that suggesting the union request was three times inflation amounted to “creative math” by the government.

He is not buying anything the province has to say.

“The 4 per cent and 4.25 per cent increases that BCGEU members have proposed are fair and reasonable,” said Finch. “The government’s latest offer at just 1.5 per cent in the first year and 2 per cent in the second year falls far short of addressing members’ needs and is essentially telling the public to expect cuts in the services we all rely on.”

The two sides were set to meet for negotiations last week in Victoria, but it never happened.

Talks for a new deal broke off in July.

This is the second time the BCGEU has launched job action. In the summer of 2022, liquor distribution warehouses were the site of picket lines for two weeks, affecting the flow of booze to restaurants and bars.

The BCGEU represents more than 34,000 public service workers.

—With files from Raynaldo Suarez and The Canadian Press