The union representing over 7,000 civil servants has filed for binding arbitration.
Members of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union voted 97% in favour of the move after rejecting the province’s four year contract offer.
Government had proposed no wage increases for the first two years, three percent over the final two years, and eliminating the public service award.
It is the same proposal the McNeil government has submitted to teachers and nurses.
NSGEU president Jason MacLean explains why the union chose to go to binding arbitration.
“We’ve seen no end of it in sight. They’re (the union) not even looking for anything outside of, maintaining what they have. We’re just trying to move the process forward.”
MacLean says negotiations have been ongoing, but government seems to be going backwards.
“The employer came and they just tabled, ‘This is where we are.’ And it’s what we started with at day one. So I mean that’s just something that’s unheard of. We had things that we have agreed to, that we had to agree to again.”
The two sides will now present their demands to an arbitrator who will decide the terms of a new collective agreement which both sides must abide by.
