The Union of Northern Workers says a mediator has been appointed to try to reach a new collective agreement for thousands of NWT government workers.
The union’s bargaining team said on Thursday the two parties “find themselves far apart” after five rounds of negotiations, without providing specifics.
According to the UNW, the mediator will be Jacquie de Aguayo, a former chair of the BC Labour Relations Board.
De Aguayo worked as a lawyer for multiple unions before serving as the labour relations board’s chair from 2018 to 2022.
No firm schedule for mediation was immediately available.
Advertisement.
Advertisement.
Approached for comment on Thursday afternoon, the NWT government’s Department of Finance – which holds responsibility for labour relations – said it was working on a response, which will appear here when available.
The union says more than 5,100 of its members work for the territorial government. The last GNWT collective agreement expired at the end of March, though its terms remain in effect until a new one is in place.
In February 2019, the union came within hours of declaring a strike at the GNWT before negotiators agreed to let mediator Vince Ready decide on a fair compromise.
That point, however, was only reached more than three years after the expiry of a collective agreement in January 2016.
