‘What was the point?’: SaskTel employee frustrated with tentative contract

After 17 days of job action, including frigid days on the picket line, some workers at SaskTel are frustrated with the tentative contract agreed to by the union.

During negotiations and picketing, Unifor — the union representing thousands of Saskatchewan Crown corporation workers — said it wouldn’t accept the two years without a raise being offered by the companies.

On Oct. 20, the union reached a tentative agreement and workers were back on the job that week. But now, many workers are taking a look at the agreement and wondering what it was all for.

According to the agreement obtained by 980 CJME, the wage increases are zeros for the first two years, then one per cent in the third year, and two per cent in each of the fourth and fifth years.

“So, what was the point?” asked one SaskTel worker in Regina with more than a decade on the job. The worker has been granted anonymity to protect his job.

Unifor national president Jerry Dias said often during negotiations and picketing that the union wouldn’t accept zeroes. At the end of September, he called an offer which included no increases in the first two years and a one-per-cent increase in the third year “insulting.”

“What I can’t understand is the sheer hypocrisy because if (the salary increase accepted by MLAs) is good enough for them, then certainly the workers that generate the profits — and a significant amount of profit is poured back into our communities — deserve better than zeroes,” Dias said at the time.

The SaskTel worker said the union presented the contract to members earlier in the week.

“They kind of pumped themselves up about how they got the best deal that they could and they worked really hard and that, and basically 10 minutes into the ratification meeting, they finally kind of revealed that the zero per cents were still on the table, and at that point you could see the mood in the room shift quite a bit,” he explained.

He said one man even got up and shouted at the union, then walked out of the meeting.

The worker said the union presenters admitted they didn’t “knock it out of the park,” but basically told employees this was the best they were going to do.

A copy of one of the pages of a proposed new labour contract between SaskTel and Unifor members who work at the Crown corporation. (Submitted to 980 CJME)

Other clauses in the tentative contract include a provision that full-time employees will get four days of pay from SaskTel for the time they were on strike, with part-time employees getting an amount determined by their hours worked.

Workers will get a one-per-cent contribution to their flex spending accounts at the end of this year and next year, and women’s advocates will be created for female members to go to with their concerns.

The worker says the feeling among many of his co-workers is wondering why they walked out, went through all the job action and disrupted everyone’s lives only to accept the wage increases the Crowns were offering anyway.

“I don’t think that anyone is even upset about the zero per cents necessarily. Overall, I think that people would have been OK with this deal if we hadn’t taken job action,” said the worker.

He said it feels like a slap in the face from the union and the company. He said it seems to him like the union just wanted publicity for its own messages against the government, instead of working for the members.

The man said he voted against the deal and would be ready to go on strike again, but said he thinks it’ll pass. He said other people voted yes because they either don’t want, or can’t afford, to go on strike again – especially right before Christmas.

On Wednesday, unionized employees at Directwest and SecurTek ratified the contract offer they received from those two Crowns.

Their three-year deals include a retroactive one-per-cent increase on their weekly pay rate for 2019 and two-per-cent increases on their weekly pay rate for each of 2020 and 2021.

Workers at seven Crowns — SaskEnergy, SaskPower, SaskTel, SaskWater, the Water Security Agency, Directwest and SecurTek — went on strike Oct. 4.

The Water Security Agency and the local representing its employees reached a tentative deal Oct. 10. The other six Crowns and the union announced they had come to an agreement on Oct. 20.

Ratification meetings are being held around the province until Nov. 14.

— With files from 980 CJME’s Joseph Ho