Leader-Post Staff
A tentative contract has been agreed upon between eHealth Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Government and General Employees’ Union (SGEU) Local 1579 bargaining unit.
Once ratified, the agreement will cover a three-year term, retroactive to October 2022 and lasting until September 2025. The previous agreement expired in September 2022, according to a news release issued Monday.
Details of the agreement won’t be shared until ratification has been completed, the release noted.
“I am pleased to see that an agreement has been reached that is fair and beneficial to both the employees and eHealth Saskatchewan, and commend the hard work of the dedicated bargaining teams to achieve this goal,” Minister of Health Everett Hindley stated in the release. “This was achieved in just over seven months and is a great example of what can happen when the parties commit to finding common ground and collaborative solutions.”
The agreement will cover 650 employees in Saskatchewan, including those who work in IT and related support, provide health cards, Vital Statistics services, and in administration and organizational support.
The deal comes on the heels of an unrelated SGEU announcement in early July, when the union revealed that it had ratified a three-year tentative agreement with the provincial government for public service employees — a year and a half after negotiations had begun.
The agreement, which is retroactive to October 2022 and will last until September 2025, included an approximate eight-per-cent wage increase over three years as well as a 0.4-per-cent increase to pensions for members who are not already at nine per cent.
Over 11,000 Public Service/Government Employment (PS/GE) employees in Saskatchewan are covered under the contract, including wildland firefighters, nurses, teachers, ferry operators, child protection workers and conservation officers.
