Burnaby – The unionized employees at ICBC have voted to accept their newly bargained collective agreement. The members of the Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union, Local 378 (MoveUP) voted to accept the agreement by 71 per cent.
MoveUP first started serious negotiations with ICBC in the fall of 2011. It took over a year and several months of job action to reach a deal.
“This was a hard won agreement,” said MoveUP President David Black. “In addition to the three strike days when our members walked picket lines, we took extensive internal job action including training and overtime bans, and restricted workloads.”
The agreement includes four staggered one per cent wage increases, with the first wage increase retroactive to July 1, 2012, maternity and parental top-up leave, and the promise of a workload study – ICBC’s first workload study in nearly 20 years.
“This is a foundational agreement,” said Black. “We wanted stronger workload protections–our members are struggling under crushing workloads which can impact the services the public receives. But with this agreement their wages won’t fall further behind inflation, and we can start to fix the workload problem.”
The freshly ratified four year agreement covers approximately 4,600 employees at ICBC. The term of the agreement is from July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2014. ICBC’s board will vote on the agreement on December 6.
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Media contact: Jarrah Hodge, jhodge@moveuptogether.ca
