Police association overwhelmingly ratifies agreement

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This article was published 19/06/2017 (2500 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Members of the Winnipeg Police Association have ratified the tentative agreement reached earlier this month with city hall.

“We had a large turnout and our members voted overwhelmingly, 94 per cent, in favour,” said WPA vice president George Van Mackelbergh.

Negotiators for the police union and city hall had reached a tentative agreement on June 5. The WPA’s 1,900 members voted on the deal over a 10-day period. Counting of the ballots took place Monday.

Van Mackelbergh declined to release details of the agreement until it goes before city council Wednesday for approval but the document was posted on the city’s website Tuesday afternoon.

As reported previously by the Free Press, the agreement with the police union is a five- year deal, with annual increases of 2.5 per cent in the each of the first three years and a combined 2.5 per cent increase in two installments (1 per cent and 1.5 per cent) for each of the remaining two years.

Highlights of the deal include: civilianization of 30 police positions in central processing unit and central reading unit, reducing the number of police officers with lower-paid civilians; expansion of cadet duties, including attending to traffic hazards, escort duties within the police headquarters building, police building security surveillance, and filling staff vacancies in the river patrol unit.

The administrative report to council accompanying the deal, authored by the city’s chief negotiator Robert Kirby, states the agreement meets the four goals the city has sought to achieve in bargaining with police for the past 25 years: Minimize the increases in salary and benefits; Maintain as many management rights as possible; Make changes to Collective Agreement language to address current issues or issues that have arisen since the last round of negotiations; Attempt to make changes to increase operational efficiency.

“The Public Service believes that we have accomplished the above four goals within this round of collective bargaining,” Kirby said.

The agreement appears to be headed for approval at the council meeting after getting endorsements Tuesday from Mayor Brian Bowman and finance chairman Coun. Scott Gillingham.

“My hope is that council will ratify this negotiated collective agreement,” Gillingham (St. James-Brooklands-Weston) said. “I believe the agreement protects taxpayers with numbers that are more sustainable than recent collective agreements while being fair to members of the police association.”

“The collective agreement was one that I believe is good for taxpayers as well as good for members,” Bowman said, adding that talks are continuing with the police association to make changes to the police union pension plan that will be favourable to the city.

Earlier, the city reached an agreement with firefighters on a four-year deal that includes a 1.8 per cent wage increase at the end of this year, followed by increases of two per cent in each of the three following years.

Meanwhile, members of the city’s largest union will vote June 29 on a tentative deal their negotiating team struck with city hall on June 13.

A day-long information session is planned for the 4,600 CUPE 500 members who work at city hall at the RBC Convention Centre the day before the vote.

Bargaining talks aren’t over for city hall. Three union groups are still without a contract and a fourth expires in August.

The city’s middle managers, represented by the Winnipeg Association of Public Service Officers (WAPSO) have been without a contract since October 2015. The Winnipeg Police Seniors Officers Association agreement expired at the end of December. The contract with paramedics, represented by the Manitoba Government and General Employees Union (MGEU), expired in mid-February of this year.

The agreement with the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Senior Officers Association expires in August.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca

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