{"id":504252,"date":"2026-02-28T01:37:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T01:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/504252\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T01:37:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T01:37:20","slug":"iqaluit-housing-workers-make-highest-gains-in-territory-union-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/504252\/","title":{"rendered":"Iqaluit housing workers make \u2018highest\u2019 gains in territory, union says"},"content":{"rendered":"

New contract gives unionized workers 7.5% retro pay, then 3% raises over next 2 years<\/p>\n

The Nunavut Employees Union is celebrating what\u00a0 its calls the \u201chighest economic increases for a housing authority in this territory\u201d after ratifying a new contract for Iqaluit Housing Authority workers Monday.<\/p>\n

Both the union and housing authority management said they are happy to be moving forward with a new deal, which was achieved without a repeat of 2023, when the lack of agreement led to 19-week-long strike.<\/p>\n

Under the new agreement, the employees \u2014 whose jobs include tenant relations and finance officers, carpenters, painters, housing maintainers and electricians \u2014 will receive three salary increases over the course of three years.<\/p>\n

First is a 7.5 per cent increase retroactive to July 1, 2025. That is followed by an increase of three per cent starting July 1, 2026, and another three per cent raise on July 1, 2027.<\/p>\n

The deal expires June 30, 2028.<\/p>\n

The new deal replaces the previous collective agreement for the housing authority\u2019s 20 employees that expired June 30, 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur union is very happy for this new deal,\u201d said president Jason Rochon in an email.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe it shows the employer came to the table negotiating in good faith and we hope it recognizes the work our members do in caring for housing across Nunavut\u2019s only city, which is growing each year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tasha Sandbach, general manager of the housing authority and part of its negotiating team, also had a similar positive tone calling the result a \u201cgood outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a long process, so it\u2019s nice to come to an agreement without any strike or anything like that,\u201d Sandbach said in an interview Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve made significant gains in this round of bargaining, including good economic increases for [housing authority] workers compared to housing workers elsewhere in this territory,\u201d Rochon said.<\/p>\n

He also pointed to improvements in family abuse, bereavement and parental leave; an increased vacation travel allowance; and an improved work clothing allowance.<\/p>\n

As well, the employees now have the \u201clargest language bonus for housing workers in this territory,\u201d Rochon said, at $2,000 per year for employees who speak Inuktitut.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

While negotiations took months to complete<\/a>, the done deal came without a labour disruption.<\/p>\n

In 2023, housing workers went on strike for 19 weeks before a deal finally came together<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This time, negotiations went much better both Rochon and Sandbach said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that being able to meet in person with both sides of the bargaining team, it was probably one of the most helpful things in the situation,\u201d Sandbach said.<\/p>\n

Both are happy to be moving forward with a done deal.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be good to get back to business as usual,\u201d Sandbach said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New contract gives unionized workers 7.5% retro pay, then 3% raises over next 2 years The Nunavut Employees…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-504252","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}