Unifor Local 103 announces this evening, that following a series of ratification meetings from James Bay to North Bay, the members have overwhelmingly ratified the negotiated agreements reached at 9:06 a.m. on Saturday, December 12th by an overall margin of 88%.
“The ratification results clearly demonstrate that the members fully trusted the elected bargaining committees to negotiate the best agreement on their behalf,” said Unifor Local 103 President Andy Mitchell.
“We have brought back agreements that provides for increases in wages, improvements in contract language along with added job protections.”
Ontario Northland locked out Unifor shop employees on November 14th in an effort to force concessions on its employees that would allow the contracting out of much of the work performed by the workers and the elimination of the skilled trades program.
“We were successful in pushing the company off their concessions while at the same time meeting them on their key objectives in commercializing the North Bay facilities. The table is set for ONTC/Government to begin to deliver on the promise of transformation and prosperity for the North,“ concluded Mitchell in a release.
The agreement provides for immediate increases in wages to the skilled trades followed by annual improvements of 2% on January 1st of 2016, 2017 and 2018 with all contracts expiring on December 31, 2018.
Unifor represents approximately 350 ONTC employees working in clerical, on-board service, stores, shops and Cochrane Station Inn at various locations across Northern Ontario.
The lockout impacted nearly 200 of those members.
