Conciliation Officer Unable To Help Reach Deal: Police Union

The Saint John Police Association says it is no closer to reaching a collective agreement for its members.

Negotiations between the union and the Saint John Board of Police Commissioners began in January.

But after a couple of hours at the bargaining table, the association announced it would seek binding arbitration to reach an agreement.

In a statement, the association said a provincially-appointed conciliation officer was brought in Thursday “in hopes of creating an environment for collective bargaining negotiations.”

“However with the arbitrary wage escalation policy that is tied to assessment based growth of the City of Saint John it is impossible to conduct negotiations on wages,” said the association.

“Therefore it was not possible to create a positive environment to negotiate wages and has resulted in the conciliation officer completing her mandate.”

The wage escalation policy, which was passed by council in late 2019, caps any wage increases for 2020 at 1.36 per cent.

“It has been 16 years since we required an interest arbitration board decision to resolve a settlement and it is very disappointing we will now require a third party award from an independent arbitration board to determine the collective agreement,” said the association.

The Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour, said once conciliation ends, the minister has up to 15 days to decide whether or not to appoint a conciliation board.

Spokesperson Leigh Watson said the other option the minister has is appointing a mediation officer “to help the parties find solutions to their issues.”

Watson noted appointing a mediation officer would not stop the timelines which move the two sides closer to applying for arbitration.