City & Transit Union Meet at Bargaining Table

The City is pleased that after it reached out to the Transit union leadership last week, both parties met on Friday, September 9 for most of the day. 

“We are hopeful this meeting and the meeting scheduled next week will lead to progress towards an agreement,” says Director of Human Resources, Marno McInnes.

However, there have been, and continue to be, allegations that the true financial picture of the pension plan has not been accurately portrayed. 

Here are some facts about the pension:

• The City of Saskatoon has no role in preparing or approving the financial picture of the pension plan.
• Both provincial and federal governments require that an assessment of the financial health of the Plan be conducted at least every three years. The last such pension valuation prepared for the City’s General Pension Plan was December 31, 2009 so the next valuation had to be prepared for December 31, 2012 and then filed with provincial authorities.
• Prior to changes being made, the Pension Plan Board of Trustees own independent pension expert reviewed the financial health and sustainability of the plan and found that it had a large deficit that would need to be addressed.
• The provincial regulator reviewed this result and approved the assessment and accepted the plan changes. 
• 8 of the City’s unions and associations understood and did not disagree on the state of the plan and, together with the City, took the necessary action to address this large deficit.
• Only the Transit union has made allegations that the City has somehow mislead everyone.

Here are some facts about wages:

Our wage offer of 10% over four years is fair. The City believes this is competitive to what is paid elsewhere for a full time Transit operator. For example, the following information shows what a Transit operator is being offered in 2016 in Saskatoon compared to what a Transit operator is being paid in Regina and Winnipeg: 

If the Transit union accepts our offer it means:

• All Transit employees, including Transit operators, would see an increase of 10% on their current wage today.
• All employees working at Access Transit would see an increase of 10% plus receive an additional $1.00 per hour increase -- resulting in a total increase of approximately 15% on their current wage today.
• The pension deal would be the same for all our employees in the General Pension Plan. 

“The City is committed to negotiating an agreement that meets the best interests of taxpayers, transit employees and customers of Saskatoon Transit,” McInnes says.