After three days of what CUPE describes as “intense” bargaining, a provincial framework deal was reached late Sunday night by the College and Institutes Support Staff Bargaining Association (CISSBA) and the government’s BC Post Secondary Employers’ Association, CUPE announced yesterday.
The framework is for a four-year deal with no wage increases for the first two years, per the province’s Net Zero Mandate, and increases over two years that are similar to other recent public-sector agreements.
“It was the unity and determined action of the CUPE college members standing strong that helped bring about the talks with the government, and it was solidarity with our colleagues in other college support staff unions that brought us to a satisfactory framework,” said CUPE BC colleges co-ordinator Ian McLean.
CUPE Local 1858 president Deborah Hopper said, “The ongoing unified actions by our collective team of institutions, including our two-day strikes, departmental shutdowns, rallies and campus watchdogging, kept the government serious in their work with us over those three long days of bargaining.
The framework will now go back to all CUPE-supported colleges for agreements to be finalized at local bargaining tables.
