According to the City of Corner Brook, they were “left with no choice but to lock out its Civic Centre employees in order to protect the safety and security of the facility.” The 24-CUPE represented workers voted in favour of strike action last week but held off to go back to the bargaining table on Monday. That ended in the evening and was due to start again at 11 a.m yesterday but by noon, the city issued a statement that activities at the centre were suspended until further notice. During a media availability at city hall yesterday, Mayor Linda Chaisson spoke about their decision due to CUPE 4386 leaving the table. She says they are looking at reimbursement for things like conferences and user groups
The Mayor also talked about a request that was issued to CUPE to give 24 hour notice before striking but says they did not.
The big issue in the dispute is wages and Chaisson says these workers are paid on par with other communities. She says it’s up CUPE now to come back to the table.
Meanwhile, the President of CUPE NL, Sherry Hillier, has been here since talks started on Monday and thought things were going good at the end of the day, but that changed quickly yesterday morning when there was no deal. She says they didn’t know they were locked out until seeing the city’s news release about it.
Hillier says the team walked out yesterday after getting what the city said was their final offer. She says it’s the same deal they’ve been offering for the past four months.
The city had the ice removed before this past weekend and cancelled all ice activities. Hillier stressed the employees are not on strike and it wouldn’t cost the city much to give them a living wage. She says these workers are looking for an extra $60k over four years and it cost the $47K to remove the ice and loss revenue as a result.
Hillier says they’re ready to return to talks at any time.
