After four weeks of being out in the cold – literally – 147 mental health and addictions workers across Cochrane and Timiskaming Districts are back at work.
Maggie Wakeford, president of the OPSEU local at the Canadian Mental Health Association says agreement was reached last Wednesday, and ratified by both sides on Friday.
Wakeford reports that the union members got what they wanted from management, which removed all concessions from the table. The biggest one involved the disability plan.
“They wanted to claw back our long-term disability, which is 4% of our wage,” she explains. “They wanted us to pay for that, to actually get the same plan that they wanted for themselves.”
The workers were locked out and forced onto picket lines on February 13th, into what turned out to be the coldest part of the winter.
They get a three-percent raise retroactive to last April; two percent this year; and one percent in each of years 3 and 4 of the contract.
Wakeford adds that her members are ecstatic to be back at work.
“We’re happy to be servicing our clients, who we love. I mean, that’s why we do the work we do. Bottom line, it comes down to our clients.”
Wakeford adds that some of the clients walked the picket lines and made donations to the union’s strike fund.
