The BC Generals Employee Union (BCGEU) is escalating job action by announcing a ban on non-emergency overtime.
Around 33,000 BCGEU members in the BC Public Service are being represented by the bargaining committee, with the union saying that the ban will not apply to members employed in the BC Wildfire Service for the duration of the current wildfire season.
On top of the overtime ban, the ongoing job action at the BC Liquor Distribution Branch and whole centres remain in effect.
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“BC’s public service has been reliant on our members’ overtime for far too long and dealing with the systemic issues behind that reliance is part of what we’re trying to achieve in this round of bargaining,” said BCGEU President Stephanie Smith in a statement.
Smith is also the chair of the union’s public service bargaining committee.
“In this job action, our members are the vanguard of the broader public sector in our province. We hope this escalation gives government the incentive they need to invite us back to the bargaining table and negotiate a deal that will ensure robust, sustainable public services for our province and a fair deal for BCGEU members and all public sector workers.”
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The BCGEU suggests that reliance on overtime is “unsustainable and dangerous, leading to burnout, increased risk to physical and psychological safety of workers and erosion of the services people rely on.”
A statement from the union goes on to say that issues like under-staffing, excessive workload, and high turnover that have plagued the public service for years, have been masked by workers’ willingness to perform overtime in non-emergency situations.
Negotiations on a new collective agreement began all the way back in February of this year. The previous agreement expired on April 1 and bargaining reached an impasse on April 6.
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