WINNIPEG, TREATY 1 – Manitoba’s largest labour Union says Manitoba Hydro needs to take advantage of the Manitoba NDP’s newest regulatory changes that allow for Manitoba Hydro to hire Institutional Safety Officers (ISOs).
“Wab Kinew’s NDP has made the changes needed to help keep Manitoba Hydro employees safe at work” says Michelle Bergen, President of CUPE 998.
Mandatory minimum staffing ratios in health care could be a game changer – CUPEWINNIPEG, TREATY 1 – Manitoba’s largest labour union says the NDP government’s blueprint for the year ahead is on the right track and offers important improvements for workers and seniors, including legislating minimum patient-to-staff ratios. CUPE urges the province to invest in public services adjacent to Northern development and continue building a strong public sector that provides valuable services and good jobs for Manitobans.
Today CUPE 998 representing approximately 870 workers at Manitoba Hydro has scheduled a strike vote with members for Friday, May 30, 2025. The strike vote follows months of bargaining where Manitoba Hydro has failed to present an offer consistent with what it has reached with other bargaining units within Manitoba Hydro.
“We know Manitoba Hydro has settled with other workers within Hydro with fair collective agreements,” said Michelle Bergen, President of CUPE 998.
Winnipeg – Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister is playing smoke and mirrors with the public, and is using the COVID-19 pandemic to justify his agenda of public sector cuts, says CUPE 998 President Michelle Bergen representing clerical and technical staff at Manitoba Hydro.
“The half-truths and disinformation coming out of the Premier’s mouth show a deep lack of leadership, and need to be addressed,” says Bergen in response to Pallister’s media conference today.
WINNIPEG – Unions representing Manitoba Hydro workers across the province are outraged that the Premier is putting the safety and reliability of public energy at risk by forcing mass, unjustified job cuts.
AMHSSE, CUPE, IBEW and Unifor have been in talks with Manitoba Hydro. Government demanded huge cuts from public bodies, and Hydro plans to move ahead with up to 700 layoffs to meet the target.
Last week, with extremely short notice, CUPE was advised by the Pallister government about their desire to reduce the cost of so-called “non-essential” public sector workforce by 10-30 per cent. Unions and employers were initially informed about the plan through a provincial news release.
The workforce reduction will not apply to essential workers in areas like health care, child care, K-12 teaching and certain other public services and utilities – but it is alarming news from our government in the midst of the crisis of our generation.
WINNIPEG – The 2020 Manitoba budget does little to ensure the public health funding that will be
needed to properly contain the coronavirus now, and in the future – says CUPE Manitoba, the
province’s largest union.
“Public Health should be getting a huge cash infusion to staff up for public health task forces,
immunization clinics, and ensuring enforcement of quarantine: instead this government is cutting
public health during a time of its most dire need,” says Abe Araya, President of CUPE Manitoba.
The CUPE Manitoba Annual Convention scheduled for April 15-17, 2020, will be postponed to a later date.
Out of an abundance of caution related to the COVID-19 pandemic, CUPE Manitoba will not be holding our annual convention until the pandemic has subsided, or until health authorities recommend such gatherings can take place without potentially putting participants at risk of contact with COVID-19.
BRANDON – Delegates at the 2019 CUPE Manitoba Convention in Brandon elected Abe Araya as President of the province’s largest union. Abe Araya comes from CUPE Local 110, representing custodians, maintenance, and painters at the Winnipeg School Division.
“Our union is focused on fighting back against cuts to health care, education, social services, and privatization,” said Araya.
On October 7th the Pallister government introduced Bill 2, an amendment to the current Public Services Sustainability Act, commonly known as the “wage freeze” Bill.
The government continues to limit wage increases through legislation, as well as other monetary items that would otherwise be negotiated through free collective bargaining.
“This legislation continues to interfere in free collective bargaining, by legislating wage limits, rather than allowing employers and workers to negotiate”, says Gord Delbridge, President of CUPE Manitoba, the province’s largest union and partner in the multi-union group currently challenging the government in court.