Wage Freeze: Police achieve significant wage increase in Niagara.

Niagara Police were just awarded close to 10% over 3 through an interest arbitration award. (Interest arbitrations are a way to settle contract disputes for 'essential' workers without using strikes or lockouts. In Ontario, they are typically used for police and fire fighters as well as hospital and long term care employees).

The Niagara contract expires December 2011 and the award comes from the well known arbitrator George Adams, who was the chair of the OCHU-Ontario Hospital interest arbitration that covered the years 1995-2001.

Despite all the compensation complaints (histrionics?) from the provincial government, the Niagara Council Chair is much more sanguine: "It is what it is. This is the decision of the arbitrator. We'll accept that and will now move forward for the next three years."

For more on this, see here .

dallan@cupe.ca

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