Labour Relations Update – Oct. 8
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Members of SEIU Local 2 voted Thursday night to reject the University's contract offer. The five-year deal contained no wage cuts, a range of salary increases, and provided lump sum payments for all employees. It also required changes to benefit provisions in order to meet the province's requirement that all new collective agreements contain no net compensation increases in the first two years.
The current wage rates paid to employees of SEIU, Local 2 are above the living wage for Hamilton, which is between $13.50 and $14.00 an hour.
The current rates for the bargaining unit range from $15.02 to $30.15
per hour. Under the University's contract offer these wage rates would increase to between $16.00 and $34.63 per hour.
McMaster continues to pay higher than market rates for cleaning and custodial employees.
SEIU Local 2 represents operations and maintenance workers, skilled trades and cleaners and custodians at McMaster. They are in a legal strike position and have set 1:00 a.m. Wednesday, October 13 as the strike deadline. No bargaining has been scheduled but the University is willing to resume negotiations upon request.
The University will remain open if there is a strike. A contingency planning group has been meeting for a number of weeks to ensure that health and safety on campus is maintained. Picket lines could delay traffic getting into and out of campus and should a strike occur, everyone is asked to leave themselves extra time to get to work and classes. Additional information on contingency planning is available here. Updates will be available through the Labour Relations link on the Daily News.
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