BC’s government employee strike is over. Here’s what comes next

After a tense eight-week strike, B.C. has reached a tentative deal with the union for 34,000 government workers.

The strike by the BC General Employees’ Union shut down liquor and cannabis distribution and backlogged traffic courts as the union ramped up job action incrementally.

On Sept. 2, the union started job action while demanding the province make a better wage offer than 3.5 per cent over two years.

At its peak, more than 25,000 members were off the job, including correctional officers, core government workers and the employees who process student loans.

But last week the two sides went back to the table with mediators Vince Ready and Amanda Rogers.

On Sunday, the union said the B.C. government offered a general wage increase of three per cent per year for four years — in total, a 12.6 per cent increase — plus pay adjustments for the lowest-paid workers in the public sector.

“This is a significant win for our members,” BCGEU president Paul Finch said. “We wouldn’t have gotten to this point if our members hadn’t had the courage and tenacity and determination to spend eight weeks on picket lines across the province.”

Finch said members will start voting on the deal next week but did not disclose when the vote will end. Mediation was not binding — meaning voting down the deal could send the two sides back to negotiations.

The tentative deal clears the way for other public sector unions bargaining with the provincial government this year to fight for better wages for about 452,000 workers. It also comes while B.C. faces a nearly $12-billion deficit.

B.C. Finance Minister Brenda Bailey said in an email she was “pleased to see a tentative agreement,” adding she would not comment further until members vote on the deal.

But experts are skeptical that the deal is a big win for either side. David Hannah, a business professor at Simon Fraser University, said that instead, the end of the strike is a victory for the public and the mediators.

“People were on strike for a long time — they lost a lot of wages, there was a lot of inconvenience to others and big impacts on businesses,” Hannah said. “It’s hard for me to take a look at all that and call it a win.”

More than the wage increase, Hannah said, the key difference that helped get negotiations moving again was extending the agreement to four years.

He said the longer-term contract will mean more labour stability and keep wages locked in to three per cent per year without giving the union a chance to ask for more in 2027.

Hannah added the new deal “changes the playing field” for the other public sector unions in negotiations.

The province made a similar wage offer — 3.5 per cent over two years — to many other public sector unions, including the Hospital Employees’ Union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Professional Employees Association.

The PEA, representing more than 1,600 government engineers, lawyers and other licensed professionals, walked off the job the same day as the BCGEU, asking for a similar wage increase.

On Sunday, it announced the provincial government had upped its wage offer to match the BCGEU’s new wage increases. The PEA took down its own picket lines and is heading back to negotiations.

Meanwhile, the Facilities Bargaining Association — representing 67,500 health-care staff primarily with the Hospital Employees’ Union — announced it was entering a “new phase of negotiations” after the BCGEU’s tentative deal.

The BCGEU deal “marks another major step on the road for public sector bargaining in our province,” Lynn Bueckert, secretary-business manager of the Hospital Employees’ Union, said in a statement emailed to The Tyee.

Bueckert added bargaining at that table would now shift toward improving wages and working conditions for members.

Marc Lee, an economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said the proposed wage increases would put workers just past inflation — projected to be 2.2 per cent in 2025 and 2.1 per cent in 2026.

“It’s kind of like treading water,” Lee said. “I don’t think it’s a huge victory from the union perspective, and I don’t think it’s a horrible deal from the government’s perspective either.”

Lee added those wage increases might not be enough to attract and retain health-care workers, as the B.C. health sector faces staffing shortages and retention issues.

Labour is the province’s largest cost. According to the Ministry of Finance, provincial public sector employers spend about $53.2 billion per year on total compensation — about 60 per cent of the province’s budget.

The ministry estimates an increase of one per cent in total compensation for all B.C. public sector employees will cost $532 million per year.

That means if the province extends the same wage offer to all B.C. public sector workers, the new deals will cost an additional $2.1 billion over the next two years.

But Lee said that’s a small increase when compared with the province’s entire $96-billion budget.

“It doesn’t really scare me a whole lot,” Lee said. “You’re not looking at a major shift at the end of the day.”

Lee previously told The Tyee that running a deficit to strengthen public services, such as education and health care, can stimulate the economy and support residents during a recession.

Meanwhile, the B.C. Finance Ministry previously said it’s aiming to balance labour costs with spending it needs to manage the impacts of U.S. tariffs on the economy.

Lee said on Monday that the prolonged strike had been tough on members and the public, and that he was glad it was over.

“It’s a reasonable deal,” Lee said. “Everyone lives to fight another day and we can get on with doing the good work of public service for British Columbians.”

— This article was originally published by The Tyee