A tentative agreement has been reached between the United Steelworkers Local 1-405 bargaining committee and Heritage Credit Union and HG Insurance. It covers roughly 30 employees between the Castlegar and Slocan Park locations. Jeff Bromley, the Financial Secretary for the United Steelworkers, is happy with the outcome and is recommending union members vote in favour of the agreement next week. He says one important aspect was domestic violence leave language.
“We were successful in getting up to 12 weeks paid leave accessed through their sick leave account that they can take if they’re experiencing domestic violence of any kind or family violence.” Bromley adds that the work force he represents for the credit union is all women and domestic violence has been an important issue.
It’s a three year agreement with a two per cent wage increase each year and comes after 11 days of bargaining over the past two months. Bromley feels it’s a positive outcome for both sides. “I think in this round of bargaining, I think it actually went particularly well. There was some stalls and some frustration to begin with in the first half I’d say, but once we ironed out those frustrations we were able to make some good headway.”
It also included an increase in eligible severance pay from 10 to 13 weeks, which would include those possibly impacted by an amalgamation.