Bargaining
ICBC – Bargaining 102 – Understanding Public Sector Bargaining
June 9, 2025
To: All MoveUP Members at ICBC
As we prepare for collective bargaining with ICBC, we wanted to provide a broad recap of 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 January 28, 2025, we recommend doing so for better context.
What is PSEC? What Are Mandates?
There are approximately 600,000 workers in British Columbia’s public sector, which includes Crown corporations and agencies, health and community social services, K-12 education, and post-secondary education workers.
Just like MoveUP members at ICBC, nearly 450,000 of all public-sector workers are unionized, across 186 collective agreements. The Public Sector Employers’ Council (PSEC) sets wages, collective agreement length, and the bargaining cycle for public sector workers and it is typically the same for all public sector workers. PSEC has coordinated all public-sector bargaining in British Columbia since 1994.
The BC government, via PSEC, sets the bargaining mandate for the public sector, which all public sector employers are legally 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 cause delays in bargaining.
This process isn’t unique to our negotiations with ICBC. Every public sector union in BC deals goes through the same process. This process 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 the Cooperative Gains Mandate.
This mandate saw the initial offer from government being a four-year deal 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, working in conjunction with other public sector unions, we were able to achieve 4% in increases in the last two years of the four-year agreement.
In 2014-2019, PSEC introduced the Economic Stability Mandate. The result saw minor wage increases as well as 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 five-year agreement.
In 2019-2022, PSEC introduced 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. Additionally, an additional 1.78% increase was rolled in from the often-unpredictable Gainshare payout and converted into guaranteed, pensionable earnings. This resulted in an 8.1% compounded increase over the term of the three-year agreement.
Our current collective agreement (2022-2025) was negotiated under the Shared Recovery Mandate. It was a three-year agreement which included increases that were tied to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the first time ever. The wage increases were $0.25 per hour plus 3.24% in the first year, 6.75% in the second year, and 3% in the third year for a total of $0.25 + 12.99% compounded over the life of the collective agreement.
The previous mandates roughly tracked cost-of-living increases within our region:
What Should We Expect This Round of Bargaining?
While we cannot predict with any certainty, we can make educated assumptions based on past practices. PSEC normally keeps the terms of the mandate confidential until they settle with one of the larger public sector unions, such as British Columbia General Employees’ Union (BCGEU) or the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
The BC Budget released in March suggests the government has set aside for roughly a 1% wage increase per year for public sector workers. There is also additional monies in the contingency fund; however, there’s no guarantee that this money is earmarked for additional wage increases. It is also important to note that the government’s financial situation may have shifted from what was presented in the BC Budget due to the uncertainty from the tariff threats on our economy from the United States.
We feel the BC Budget serves as a starting point, but it is up to us as the unions and workers of the public sector to rally together to fight for fair wages. This is just the beginning, and you will be hearing much more from us as we continue through bargaining process.
We have heard from other unions that have been at the table that progress is currently with non-monetary items, and a lack of readiness on the part of government to move forward to monetary discussions. They have projected that monetary discussions may start in mid-June.
Where We Are At With Bargaining at ICBC:
Your bargaining committee has been working hard at crafting bargaining proposals based on all of the feedback we’ve received through the bargaining survey, focus groups, and emails sent to the bargaining committee, as well as discussions we’ve had with members and job stewards.
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 four months of the collective agreement’s expiry date, which is June 30, 2025, for our contract.
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. Until we reach a new collective agreement, the terms and conditions of your existing collective agreement will continue on even after it expires.
What You Can Do:
This is your contract. You are the union. Help us out by staying informed, reading our bulletins, and providing additional feedback to the bargaining committee as needed.
Please take time to log in to your Member Portal account and ensure your contact information is up to date.
To have success at the bargaining table, we need to all be on the same team together.
If you have any further questions or comments, please contact us by email: icbcbarg@moveuptogether.ca
In solidarity,
Your Bargaining Committee:
Jeffrey Bryant, Executive Board Member
Brian Martens, Executive Board Member
Ahmad Naqvi, Executive Board Member
Leilah Thiel, Executive Board Member
Lana Topic, Executive Board Member
Sara Colliss, Union Representative
Dimitri Ossinsky, Vice-President
