Mayor Peter Politis says the town had no alternative but to request a supervised vote aimed at ending the five-week-long strike by non-management workers.
While the union is sticking to its raise demand of three percent a year, the mayor says the town has upped its offer, at least for the first two years of the four-year contract.
“We’ve got two and three on the table for years 1 and 2. The average in the province is 2 and 2.9 for those years,” he says. “The only dispute right now is years 3 and 4.”
The municipality wants to leave the final two years open for now… and come back in two years, when it has a handle on where inflation and the economy are headed from there.
The mayor says the town is still trying to be responsible to the striking workers, and to taxpayers.
The town initially offered two percent in each of the contract’s four years… with the union sticking to its demand for three percent.
Politis says that one-percent difference equals 186-thousand dollars a year.
“Since the strike has started, we haven’t got any realistic movement from CUPE’s side, but the town has put several offers on the table that have increased that and tried to come to conclusion.”