Striking Unifor members set up a protest in front of SaskEnergy’s White City centre that houses emergency response teams and equipment. Photo from Unifor Canada’s Twitter account.

UPDATE: After some back and forth squabble between SaskEnergy and Unifor, both sides have agreed that no emergency or essential services will be blocked at a main centre in White City on Thursday.

Early Thursday morning a large protest of striking unionized Crown workers began to picket in front of a vital SaskEnergy centre in White City, which immediately raised concerns that emergency and essential services, which are operated out of the centre would be hampered or stopped altogether.

SaskEnergy Spokesman Dave Burdeniuk said they have been in communication with Unifor on the matter.

“We did communicate with the union that while a protest and a picket line will need to be at our facility during a labour dispute, we did not want any disruption to our essential services and emergency technicians,” said Burdeniuk.

“We can confirm that people are coming and going, our technicians can come and go with no delay, which is exactly what we wanted to happen,”.

“We have also moved as many managers as possible away from our White City location, so SaskFirst call which is our provincial call centre for line locations for not just SaskEnergy but any company with buried lines has been moved, we also moved our engineering group,” Burdeniuk said.

“The initial message Wednesday night was that SaskEnergy’s centre in White City would be completely shutdown which was why we put the call out of a public safety concern on Thursday morning,” Burdeniuk added.

Thursday is day six of the Saskatchewan Crown strike, so far of the six corporations and one agency only DirectWest and the Water Security agency have received a proposal.

The more than 4,000 Unifor members striking are looking for a bigger raise than the current offer of five percent over the next five years.

Thursday morning Saskatchewan released the following information on the current offer on the table;

• The Crowns have offered Unifor members at SaskTel main, SaskEnergy, SaskWater, SaskPower and Water Security Agency 0%,0%,1%,2%,2%. Unifor members  at SecurTek and Directwest have been offered 1%, 2%, 2% in consideration of two consecutive years with 0% increase to compensation in 2017-18 and 2018-19, their two previous agreements.

• The Crowns have offered Unifor members at SaskTel main, SaskEnergy, SaskWater, SaskPower and Water Security Agency 0%,0%,1%,2%,2%. Unifor members  at SecurTek and Directwest have been offered 1%, 2%, 2% in consideration of two consecutive years with 0% increase to compensation in 2017-18 and 2018-19, their two previous agreements.
• Unifor did not serve notice to bargain and accepted  the rollover of the agreements at SecurTek and DirectWest – two consecutive years with zero increase to compensation.

• The current offer of 5.0% over five years made by the Crowns to Unifor employees is greater than the increase MLAs have received over the past five years, and not a wage freeze as Unifor leaders have portrayed. Including the most recent increase, MLAs have received 0.0%, 1.6%, minus 3.5%, 3.5% and 2.3%, which equates to a 3.9% increase over five years.

• Prior to the expiry of their current agreements, Crown employees represented by Unifor experienced wage increases of between 5.2% and 9.5% in total over five years.

• Unifor members are not being asked to do more or less than all others engaged in bargaining or those who have reached agreements during this round of bargaining.

• The average weekly salary of CIC Crown Unifor employees was $1,283 as of Dec. 31, 2018 compared to average weekly earnings in Saskatchewan of $1,010, at Dec. 31, 2018. The average weekly salary for Unifor employees at Treasury Board Crown the Water Security Agency is $1,378.

• Eight contracts across the public sector have now been settled which include zeros in the first two years, representing over 12,600 FTEs. Most recently this includes a settlement between Saskatchewan Gaming Corporation and members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). The annual increases in that agreement are 0%, 0%, 1%, 1.5% (with a 0.5% increase to pension) and 2.0% over a five-year term (January 1,2017 to December 31, 2021). • The employees of our Crowns do valuable work for the people of our province, and are fairly compensated. We know the Crowns and employees understand the fiscal environment in Saskatchewan.

• The government has been clear that to sustain valued services for the people of Saskatchewan we must manage spending carefully, including compensation expense.