We’re writing to you today to provide an update on the status of our preparations for collective bargaining with ICBC. This bulletin will broadly recap the current state of public sector bargaining in the province and outline how it impacts our negotiations. If you haven’t read our Bargaining 101 bulletin from February 9, 2022, we recommend doing so before continuing. You can find it here.

What is PSEC? What Are Mandates?

There are approximately 500,000 workers in British Columbia’s public sector, which includes Crown corporations and agencies, health and community social services, K-12 education, and postsecondary education workers.

Just like MoveUP members at ICBC, nearly 400,000 of all public-sector workers are unionized, across 186 collective agreements. Wages, collective agreement length, and bargaining cycle for these workers are all set by the Public Sector Employers’ Council (PSEC) and are typically the same for all public sector workers. PSEC has coordinated all public-sector bargaining in British Columbia since 1994.

Government, via PSEC, sets the bargaining mandate for the public sector, which all public sector employers are statutorily bound to observe. PSEC must review and approve all language and costing prior to being tabled, and once a tentative agreement has been reached, PSEC must approve it.

Every proposal and counterproposal the employer develops is passed through PSEC to be scrutinized and approved. This approval process can delay bargaining as we wait for PSEC to review and approve or deny changes at the table through the employer, the go-between in these discussions.

This process isn’t unique to our negotiations with ICBC. We share it with just about every unionized public sector worker across the province. It can sometimes make it difficult to negotiate changes that matter most to you and unique to your work at ICBC.

Recent Public Sector Bargaining History

In 2010-2014, PSEC introduced what they called the Cooperative Gains Mandate. Some of you may recall that the initial offer from government was to be four years with no wage increases at all. It took us two long years, a strike vote, and rotating job action to change their position. In the end, and working in conjunction with other public sector unions, we were able to achieve 4% in increases in the last two years of the 4-year agreement.

In 2014-2019, PSEC introduced the Economic Stability Mandate. This resulted in minor wage increases but also included a provision for additional wage increases based on the forecasted economic growth achieved in British Columbia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This resulted in an additional 1.95% in Economic Stability Dividends (ESD), for a total compounded base wage increase of 6.4% at ICBC over the term of the 5-year agreement.

Our current collective agreement (2019-2022) was negotiated under the Sustainable Services Mandate, which resulted in a three-year agreement with 2% wage increases for each year, totaling 6% over the course of the agreement, plus an additional 1.78% from rolling in the often-unpredictable Gainshare payout and converting it into guaranteed, pensionable earnings. This resulted in an 8.1% compounded increase over the term of the 3-year agreement.

The previous mandates roughly tracked cost-of-living increases within our region:

Consumer Price Index (CPI)
Year	CPI Canada	CPI BC	CPI Vancouver	ICBC Wage Increases (%)
2012	1.5	1.1	1.3	1
2013	0.9	-0.1	0.2	3
2014	2	1	1.1	0
2015	1.1	1.1	1.2	1
2016	1.4	1.8	2.2	1.15 (including 0.45% ESD)
2017	1.6	2.1	2.2	2.15 (including 0.35% ESD)
2018	2.3	2.7	2.9	1.9 (including 0.4% ESD)
2019	1.9	2.3	2.4	3.75 (including 0.75% ESD)
2020	0.7	0.8	0.6	2 + 0.78% Gainshare roll-in
2021	3.4	2.8	2.7	2 + 1.0% Gainshare roll-in
Total	16.8	15.6	16.8	19.73

What Should We Expect This Round of Bargaining?

We don’t know, but we have a pretty good idea. Using past practice as a guide, PSEC normally keeps the terms of the mandate under wraps until they settle with one of the bigger public sector unions such as British Columbia General Employees’ Union (BCGEU) or the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).

On April 27th, 2022, the BCGEU published a news release stating that they had reached an impasse at the bargaining table due to the proposed wage increases. PSEC proposed 1.75% in the first year, 2% in the second year, and 2% in the third year of the renewed agreement. These increases fall short when compared to current and forecasted inflation. This resulted in the BCGEU conducting a strike vote, achieving nearly a 95% strike mandate from their members, and resulted in their employer requesting they resume negotiations today. We stand in solidarity with the BCGEU and its members and are hopeful they can now move PSEC beyond this impasse.

As of now, the Government’s wage proposals are just that: proposals, and we should not assume that the proposed wages are going to be PSEC’s final mandate. However, it confirms that we are in for a long and difficult round of bargaining this round.

Where We Are At With Bargaining at ICBC:

Under Section 45 and 46 of the Labour Relations Code, either party of the Collective Agreement (union or employer) may issue written notice to commence collective bargaining within 4 months of the collective agreement’s expiry date, which is June 30, 2022, for our contract.

Though the terms and conditions outlined in the collective agreement continue post-expiry until the parties reach a new agreement, we try to issue notice as soon as we are prepared to do so to ensure we negotiate the new collective agreement as soon as possible. As of this date, neither party has issued this notice. Although your bargaining committee is fully prepared to commence collective bargaining now, ICBC is awaiting more clarity on the provincial government mandate before proceeding. We believe proceeding when both parties have more information will result in less overall delays.

What you can do:

This is your contract. You are the union. Help us out by staying informed, reading our bulletins, and coming to our telephone town hall meetings. Our first one will be held on July 5, 2022. More information will be coming out regarding the telephone town hall.

Update your contact information if you haven’t done so already, so we can ensure that you are getting up-to-date information on the status of our negotiations. You can update us here.

More information will follow in subsequent bulletins. For success at the table, we need to all move forward together.

If you have any further questions or comments, please contact us by email: icbcbarg@moveuptogether.ca

In solidarity,

Your Bargaining Committee:

Brenda Chu, Executive Board Member
Bryan Finstad, Executive Board Member
Brian Martens, Executive Board Member
Dimitri Ossinsky, Executive Board Member
Gunter Seifert, Executive Board Member
Trevor Hansen, Union Representative
Annette Toth, Vice-President

File Number: 22-ICBC-BARG-BLTN-Bargaining 102-Breaking Down Public Sector Bargaining-June 27

Union Label: TH:hp usw2009

Reply to: hparmar@moveuptogether.ca