(Susan McNeil/paNOW Staff)

By Nolan Kowal

Strike insights

Concession workers, admin staff among those threatening to strike, City says

Sep 8, 2023 | 4:00 PM

The City of Prince Albert is providing more details on which employees will walk off the job should a strike come into effect on Monday.

As of Friday afternoon, there was still no agreement between the City and CUPE 882, the union that represents 59 permanent inside-worker city positions along with 164 non-permanent positions.

“This union covers positions like secretaries, accounting clerks, planners, technologists, recreation programmers, lifeguards, and concessions,” said Kiley Bear, the City’s Director of Corporate Services.

The buildings that would be impacted include Prince Albert City Hall, the Alfred Jenkins Field House, the EA Rawlinson Centre for the Arts, the Prince Albert Arts Centre, and the Frank J. Dunn Pool.

Bear insisted the disruptions to service will be minimal.

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“All of our facilities will be open at the regular time and people can still do business with the city in the ways that they are used to,” Bear said. “Right now, it’s business as usual for Monday morning.”

She added that the City does have a plan in place to mitigate the strike.

“It’s a combination of things…it’s out of scope employees being assigned to those positions and those duties, and it’s some replacement workers that will be coming in,” Bear said.

As for Prince Albert Raiders games, Bear said only the concession workers are represented by CUPE 882, and that Raider game day staffing is currently under review by the City. The Raiders will host the Regina Pats in a pre-season game on Sept. 15 before opening their regular season at home against Moose Jaw on Sept. 22.

“For now we’re just reviewing it, and we expect to have some services in place…and we’ll have announcements coming up,” Bear said.

The City remains optimistic that a deal will be reached prior to Monday.

“We are also hopeful that the strike doesn’t occur and that the offer we have on the table is accepted…it’s a good offer, a strong offer, one of the best in the country and the best in Saskatchewan to date for Saskatchewan cities,” Bear said.

“But the service levels that we have for the public are very important, and we have to make sure those are maintained in the event of a strike, and we’ve put in a lot of work to make sure we have operations as best as we can as normal on Monday, so at this stage, there should be minimal disruptions.”

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nolan.kowal@pattisonmedia.com