Nearly 80 people are out of work and walking a picket line in Sidney after being locked out by Nicholson Manufacturing in a dispute over health-care premiums.
Nicholson, which makes heavy-duty forestry equipment, locked out its employees at 2:21 p.m. last Saturday, one minute after it was legal to do so, saying it will no longer 鈥渄ouble-pay鈥� health-care premiums now that the province has instituted the Employer Health Tax.
In a statement sent to the sa国际传媒, Nicholson president Doug Jeffrey said it鈥檚 the one issue that is holding up a new collective agreement with its two unions.
Jeffrey said they have an agreement in principle on nearly all other substantive issues.
鈥淪ince 2004, Nicholson has paid for the MSP premiums through a direct payment to its two unions, who then remitted these funds to the provincial government on behalf of Nicholson鈥檚 unionized employees,鈥� Jeffrey said. The elimination of MSP in favour of the 1.8 per cent Employer Health Tax meant the premiums were effectively being paid twice 鈥� once through the new tax and again in payment to the unions as part of the contract, he said.
鈥淣icholson has requested that its remittance to the unions be reduced by the approximate amount of the MSP premium amount, but to date, the unions have rejected this request,鈥� Jeffrey said.
Ron Wickett, business manager for Machinists Local 3, which represents 45 workers affected by the dispute, said in order for the employer to be double-paying the premium, the union would have to be paying the same health-care premiums.
Wickett said when the MSP premiums were eliminated, the amount of the negotiated benefit Nicholson was paying was moved from paying MSP into covering the rising costs of administering and maintaining the benefit.
鈥淸Nicholson] are still paying the same benefit they were paying prior to the [new health-care tax],鈥� he said.
Wickett said it doesn鈥檛 make sense for such a small sticking point to derail negotiations.
鈥淚 can鈥檛 understand why they would want to put the guys on the street,鈥� he said.
Robert Taylor, business manager for the Boilermakers Local 191, which represents 37 Nicholson workers, said the company seemed intent on making negotiation difficult from the start.
鈥淭hey were asking for concessions and offering nothing,鈥� he said, noting he and Wickett agree they want the company to return to the bargaining table.
The two unions have been without a contract for a year. They started negotiations last spring and by early 2020 all three parties acknowledged they had made significant progress.
Wickett said the final strokes of the contract were derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic and have never really got back on track.
The company is calling for a mediator, but the unions want to meet the company at the bargaining table.
Taylor said his members want a negotiated agreement to stop the 鈥渂ad blood鈥� that has developed between workers and Nicholson. If they were called back to work while a mediator worked out a deal, there鈥檚 a strong possibility the workers would go out on strike, he said.
鈥淲e want to go back to the table,鈥� Wickett said. 鈥淭hey are losing money, we are losing money. This seems more of an emotional move than a tactical move.鈥�
Wickett, who has dealt with Nicholson for years, said the atmosphere around negotiations has been different since the formerly family-owned company was purchased in 2017 by U.S.-based Kadant Inc.