The city of Terrace will be spending an extra $115,000 on wages for 2013 now that union contract negotiations are complete.
Negotiations between the city and Canadian Union of Public Employees took place in November 2012, resulting in a two per cent wage increase for unionized city employees for the years 2013 and 2014.
That wage increase amounts to a rounded additional $90,000 yearly for unionized city employees and another $25,000 extra each year for salaried workers.
This means negotiated wage increases and salary increases will cost the city an approximate total of $230,000 over the next two budget years.
“The negotiations went very smoothly,” said Brianna Pellegrino, who works with the city’s human resources department. “They only lasted a few days. We continue to maintain good labour relations.”
The CUPE contract negotiated for 2013 and 2014 is very close to that of the previous year, said Pellegrino, adding changes involved only slight variances in language.
It mimics the former contract for wage increases, under which employees are entitled to a two per cent wage increase for each contract year.
In total, the city’s directly employed 15 salaried workers will be paid $1.3 million in 2013 and 110 CUPE employees will be paid $4.5 million, according to the city’s finance director Ron Bowles.
This year’s increases amount to 0.6 per cent of the city’s entire operational budget.