Eight unionized workers at the Fort Simpson Housing Authority could walk off the job at the start of October, the Public Service Alliance of Canada says.
A collective agreement covering the authority’s staff expired last year. Workers passed a strike vote in August.
On Wednesday, PSAC said it had served the authority’s management with 72-hour strike notice.
“A strike could occur as early as October 1 if the union is unable to reach a tentative agreement with the employer,” the union stated.
The authority also serves Jean Marie River, Sambaa K’e, Nahanni Butte and Wrigley. In all, PSAC says, the authority oversees around 100 housing units. The communities involved have a total population of some 1,750 people.
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If workers go on strike, the union said non-essential repairs, “routine service requests” and tenant inquiries would be affected.
“For example, right now as the weather changes, preparations for winter are a big part of what these workers do for the community, so it is likely this kind of work will proceed more slowly than normal,” a union spokesperson stated.
However, an essential services agreement means “services related to the immediate health, safety, and wellbeing of tenants will continue to be provided.”
Unionized housing authority workers were paid between $31 and $50 an hour, depending on their roles, in 2019.
The last collective agreement, signed in 2021, increased those wages by just under six percent over four years (backdated to 2019).
That agreement also added a maternity leave allowance equivalent to 80-percent salary over nine weeks, bereavement leave and domestic violence leave with pay, and an increase in compassionate compare leave from eight to 27 weeks.
