Town of Esterhazy employees vote in favor of job action
March 31, 2025, 10:35 am
Ryan Kiedrowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
More than 80 per cent of workers at the Town of Esterhazy voted in favor of job action last week, which could include a full withdrawal of services.
“The collective agreement for the town of Esterhazy workers expired at the end of 2023,” explained Canadian Union of Public Workers (CUPE) representative Dylan Breland. “We’ve had seven days of bargaining at the table with the employer—four days in November and then another three days here earlier in March. So we’ve gone through a number of proposals. We’ve heard the employer’s position on a number of items, they’ve heard ours.”
Breland says both sides were close to an agreement, but a number of items regarding seniority and scope of the agreement were sticking points.
“The Town of Esterhazy is committed to bargaining and we believe that it will be possible to bargain a fair and competitive renewal of the collective agreement between the town and the Union,” said Esterhazy Mayor Randy Bot.
“Our latest position is for a five-year renewal of the collective agreement with a salary increase in each of those years, but the biggest thing is that we’ll bargain.
“Developments do occur in the bargaining, then we will notify the community what’s going to happen so they’re not being caught off guard by anything,” he said. “The Town of Esterhazy believes that right now, both parties can negotiate and we believe that is best for best both parties to negotiate and coming to an agreement in the collective bargaining.”
The town employs 11 permanent staff that are union members, and this is the second time both sides have been at the bargaining table since the members from the town joined CUPE in 2019.
The vote does not mean strike action is eminent, and several steps would need to be taken before action could happen.
“We’ve got a few steps to go through first,” Breland confirmed. “So to date, neither party has declared impasse at the bargaining table. One party or the other would have to declare impasse first. CUPE has been committed to negotiating at the bargaining table, that’s where we feel we’re going to see the most success.”
Should negotiations fail, a mediator would be called in as a next step.
“The Saskatchewan Labor Relations Board appoints aspecial mediator,” Breland explained. “They would come out and hear the issues. It’s non-binding, so if we’re not able to get to agreement, then there is a cooling off period of around of a week or so between the parties. We also would have to negotiate an essential service clause, given that this is a municipality that provides essential services to the residents of Esterhazy. Once that’s in place, then we could either issue 72-hour strike notice or the employer could issue 72-hour lockout notice.”
Vote shows members serious
While CUPE workers at the Town of Esterhazy are not legally permitted to strike right now, Breland says the recent vote—and especially having 80 per cent in favour—sends a strong message.
“When the employer indicated at the bargaining table that they were going to not carry on with collective bargaining, and that they were going to use the legislative process to force a vote on the employer’s offer with these items that the union couldn’t agree to, the union met with our members and that’s the time that this the strike vote was taken,” he said. “The strike vote is an indication of how seriously the members of this collective bargaining unit view these issues and how they want to address these issues in fair bargaining—not through a legislatively mandated vote.
“We wanted to demonstrate to the employer that the union is united to address these issues and to rebuke their attempt to divide the membership. There are 12 eligible members—11 current staff as well as the terminated president, who is still a member in good standing. Those 12 folks are the original pool of who we’re able to pull from. So we had at our membership meeting a vast majority of our members show up. There were only a couple absences, and it was out of the participants that were there, that’s how we had our 80 per cent in favour vote.”
If any strike action is taken before the proper steps are taken, it would be considered unlawful.
“The town will be participating in all components of the continued bargaining and will continue to work towards a renewal of the collective bargaining agreement between CUPE and the town,” noted a media release issued by the Town of Esterhazy on March 26. “The town will continue to work towards a renewal of the collective bargaining agreement and, as developments occur, we will keep the public informed.”
According to Breland, CUPE has not experienced a warm welcome by the employer.
“I’ll say that the employer has never been particularly welcoming to the idea of a union coming in,” he said. “Before the municipal election, there were issues with previous town councillors interfering with members of the union and making it well known to the members of the union, as well as a bit more publicly as well, that they were opposed, generally speaking, to this unionizing effort.
“We’ve seen the termination of the local union president for actions that we’re also attempting to address through our grievance process,” continued Breland. “But all throughout this process, this employer has never been overly friendly towards the idea of having this union in place, and then we see that continued here through their proposals and progressive or in collective bargaining, where they’re trying to force a deal where these members are going to take a longer term agreement than we typically see, and they’re asking these members to reduce the scope or the number of union positions, as well as give up seniority provisions. So it’s quite a tall order that the employer is asking for here.”
Despite some changes to town council during last November’s election, Breland notes the relationship is not great.
“We had some positive conversations at the outset, but ultimately it seems that this is still a council-driven process to this point,” he said. “Or at the very least, council is in favour of the actions that the employer’s taking. So, you know, we still feel that we have some ongoing issues that have to be addressed with council. We were hopeful that with the turnover, that we were going to be turning over a new leaf in Esterhazy, we just have yet to see that happen.”
Mayor Bot was also a member of the previous council, but noted he’s not directly involved with the negotiations and couldn’t comment on the temperature of the relationship between council and the union.
“We want to make the best decision for the town of Esterhazy and our employees, and we don’t want to create a divide,” he said, adding that legal representation is utilized by the town at the table. “It’s tough to put employees in the position of bargaining against each other, so to have that representative there for us, it gives me peace of mind, as the mayor of Esterhazy, that it will be done correctly and fairly.
“We want to build a relationship to make Esterhazy strong as a whole,” he said. “So when it comes to negotiations, we feel like it’s best to have representatives in place to make it less personal because we do not see a personal aspect in it. One side is caring about their employees, but also knowing that we are working on behalf of the taxpayers. We’re their voice and we need a fair deal for both sides.”
