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Hundreds of municipal workers will be heading into contract negotiations over the next few months as the collective agreements in the Thompson-Okanagan's five largest cities run out at the end of the year.

The union representing most of those workers and the cities affected are not giving out much information about what to expect but, given the high rate of inflation, wage catchup is obviously the key issue.

“That’s my expectation,” Paul Gipps, CAO for West Kelowna told iNFOnews.ca.

He says that, since West Kelowna has a great relationship with its union (Association of Local Government Employees Union), no other big issues are anticipated.

That city employees about 150 full-time union workers with an annual payroll of about $11 million.

That means, each 1% wage increase will translate into about $110,000 a year. A 1% tax increase brings in more than $400,000 in West Kelowna so a 4% wage increase – which is not unrealistic in this high inflation world – would be the equivalent to a 1% tax impact each year.

Kelowna’s union workers make about $55 million per year but that’s the only data Kelowna or the other cities provided by publication time. Penticton's union workers take in about $15 million per year.

Meetings are scheduled to start in Kelowna this month.

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All five contracts – in Kamloops, Kelowna, West Kelowna, Vernon and Penticton – expire on Dec. 31.

Outside of West Kelowna, the unionized workers in the other four cities are represented by various Canadian Union of Public Employees locals.

West Kelowna has a four-year contract. Agreements usually follow the basic monetary package in other locations in the region.

“We’re going to be comparative to the other communities, absolutely," Gipps said. "We don’t want to create an attractant to draw (staff) from them and vice versa, they don’t want to necessarily draw away from us. We don’t want to create a gap and start sharing employees hopping from one city to another city. That doesn’t do anybody any good in the region.”

When the four contracts were negotiated in 2019, inflation had been in the 2% per year range for almost two decades. In 2019 it was 1.95%.

Those five-year agreements, therefore, were settled with wage increases in the 2-2.5% range in most years.

That was fine for the first three years of continued low inflation. In fact, workers gained ground in 2020 when the annual inflation rate in Canada was a mere 0.72%.

That changed in March 2021 when inflation hit 2.2% and started its inexorable climb to peak at 8.13% in June of last year. While it had eased to just under 3% in June of this year, it headed in the wrong direction again in July, reaching 3.3%.

While all these agreements are up at the same time, they will not be negotiated at the same table.

“In my years of experience, over 30 now, we’ve never tied in with another community,” Gipps said. “The contract language is different. Most of our discussions are on contract language. Remuneration is the last thing dealt with. It’s always, 'what is the total going to cost the taxpayer?'”

That doesn’t mean cities, and union locals, aren’t talking to each other as negotiations progress to keep track of where things are headed.

Pay rates vary between the different cities, although it’s hard to tell, from the collective agreements, whether job titles are equivalent in each city.

But to give some idea, here is a small sampling of hourly wage rates in the different cities.

Clerk/Typist

• $31.83 – West Kelowna
• $30.07 – Kamloops
• $29.12 – Kelowna
• $29.03 – Vernon
• $27.48 – Penticton

Community Planner (with variations between cities).

• $44.94 – Vernon
• $44.85 – Kamloops
• $43.79 – Penticton
• $41.57 – Kelowna
• $37.50 – West Kelowna

Labourer

• $29.10 – Kelowna
• $28.49 – West Kelowna
• $26.10 – Vernon
• $23.67 – Kamloops
• $22.96 – Penticton

Bylaw Officer (with variations)

• $43.62 – Kelowna
• $40.61 – Vernon
• $35.50 – West Kelowna
• $34.17 – Kamloops
• $31.45 – Penticton

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