Deal includes job security provisions, inclusion of anti-bullying language
Wages for the bulk of the employees of the government of Ontario will be frozen for two years under an agreement ratified today.
More than two-thirds of Ontario Public Service Employees union members voted in favour of a tentative agreement that will freeze wages — but not progress through the ranks as the government had demanded —until the end of 2014. It will also reduce the wages of new employees entering the civil service by three per cent from the current level.
Termination pay will continue to accrue for current employees but will not be available for new employees. Termination pay is one week’s pay per year of service with no maximum.
Short-term disability benefits are reduced from 75% of salary to 66 2/3% for 124 days after the exhaustion of six sick days. The government has also wanted the seventh and eighth days to be without pay.
Language covering surplussing of employees was overhauled because, in the union’s estimate, “it wasn’t working.”
