By Greg Higgins

CUPE and Livings Sky strike three-year deal

Sep 15, 2016 | 1:12 PM

The school division has struck a deal with its support workers.

In a ceremony on Wednesday, Sept. 14 The Living Skiy School Division signed a three-year deal with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4747. The deal was designed to provide fair wages to support workers.

Some of the positions covered by CUPE include custodians, secretaries and bus drivers.

Herman Bugler Jr., who has been the Human Resource Manager for Living Sky for eight years, said he felt it was important to get the contract signed.

“It’s a fairly good agreement. I’ve really enjoyed the process,” Bugler said. “We’ve always tried to maintain a good relationship with our support staff. We have to be mindful of what we spend and we have to treat our staff well. We want to pay people as well as we can without blowing the bank.”

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Living Sky receives ministry funds but according to Bugler the provincial government does not provide an allotted amount for CUPE funding, which is where contracts like these comes in.

Bugler said the contract was almost postponed until next spring due to the provincial budget coming out late. He added staff members would have been paid the “status quo” until it was signed. Bulger said there were no rumours of a vote to strike if it was postponed.

“Here’s why I like interest-based bargaining, because we can get to the point of ‘here’s why we’re talking about this and here’s why we have to look at these different issues.’’’ Bugler said. “Everything gets laid out on the table. We’ve been very blessed with our relationship with CUPE in that there have been no tense moments.”

Bugler said it all comes back to the kids and everyone involved wanted to make sure parents knew students would be well supported.

Greg Higgins is battlefordsNOW’s city municipal affairs and health reporter. He can be reached at ghiggins@jpbg.ca or tweet him @realgreghiggins.