Negotiations have broken off between a group of workers in Burin-Marystown, who have been on strike since last fall, and the provincial government.
The Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Workers (NAPE), which represents the 15 workers, accused government negotiators of discrimination.
Fourteen of them are women.
They are employees of the Burin-Marystown Community Employment and Training Board and provide support-based services to enable persons with disabilities to work in the community. Negotiations broke off last Monday.
According to NAPE, the union agreed to concessions – including a concern by government about putting the workers on its classification system – but government still wouldn’t budge on wages.
NAPE president Carol Furlong said it came down to an average difference of 40 cents an hour per year for four years.
Ms. Furlong told a news conference in St. John’s Wednesday “What is happening to this group of workers, and the disabled clients they serve, is an embarrassment to all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.
“It should be of particular embarrassment to government that its negotiators would utilize the might of government in an attempt to crush this group of women and to cause permanent unemployment for the clients they serve.”
Ms. Furlong said some of the workers’ clients also serve lunches in the school system, and some have janitorial duties at the College of North Atlantic Burin campus.
She said there are reports some managers performing duties of clients displaced by the strike have made as much as $40 an hour.
The NAPE president said she would be writing Premier Danny Williams to appeal for him to order negotiators to bargain in good faith.
The workers have been on strike since Nov. 24 last year.
CALL FOR ARBITRATION
The Coalition of Persons with Disabilities (COD) – NL is calling on the provincial government and NAPE to agree to arbitration to settle the long overdue strike.
COD-NL President Michelle Murdoch suggested “Since all efforts have failed to resolve this dispute, the time has come for an independent arbitrator to decide the fate of both parties in the best interest of the persons with disabilities negatively affected by the strike.
“As a systemic advocacy organization, COD neither supports or points blame at either NAPE or the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. We are only concerned with the well-being of persons with disabilities who have experienced great loss in this long overdue dispute.”
Executive Director Mark Lane, after personally speaking with several of the consumers and their families negatively affected by this strike, said “Those persons with disabilities that have been unable to work are demoralized and feel as though they are being held hostage. All these people and their families want is to be able to go to work like everyone else and to contribute to a fully inclusive society.”
DO RIGHT THING
The Liberal Opposition claimed fact the Burin support workers’ strike is still not settled after nine months highlights a government that is detached and out of touch with people.
Port de Grave District MHA Roland Butler said “It is incomprehensible that a government which prides itself on standing up for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador would allow this strike situation, involving a small circle of people but impacting a whole community, to remain unsettled for so long.
“The amount of investment by government to resolve this matter is very small; and clearly, so is the amount of compassion by the government to allow these workers and clients to be been left in limbo since last fall.”
Mr. Butler noted the Opposition has supported the striking workers in the past by raising this issue a number of times in the House of Assembly and in the media.
“One the one hand, government spouts rhetoric about community-building; and yet, this is a clear example of breaking a community and its spirit.”
The Opposition MHA said he has no doubt the premier is aware of the status of the negotiations.
“These are have times for our province; and these striking workers in Burin deserve a small piece of this benefit. That fact that the federal government just footed a $130 million bill for our province under a NAFTA claim, should compel the Premier to pay his gratitude forward and settle this issue that is devastating a community.”
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