The City of Moose Jaw has reached a new collective agreement with Moose Jaw Transit employees (UNIFOR Local 101R).

A tentative agreement was reached on May 5, 2023. City council ratified the new deal May 29 and UNIFOR members voted in favour of the agreement May 31. The previous agreement expired December 31, 2022.

In addition to improvements to employee benefits, the new deal will see UNIFOR members receive a wage increase of 1.8 per cent on January 1, 2023, 1.5 per cent on January 1, 2024, and 2 per cent on January 1, 2025.

Mayor Clive Tolley says having an agreement in place until 2025 is a great thing for the community.

He encourages more people to utilize the transit system in order to increase revenues.

"Certainly, it's something that's very important to our community. We have more and more new Canadians, new immigrants, coming to our community, most of them don't have cars. They need to use the bus service and I think we could all benefit by using our transit system and we encourage people to do that."

Tolley said when he was at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Convention in Toronto last month, there was a lot of talk there about making transit systems more adaptable with things like dial-a-bus and technology that monitors required stops.

"Those are the kinds of improvements our city administration and the transit system will be looking at in the future," he noted. "For now, we've got a well-functioning service. It can always be improved. Ridership going up helps and sometimes just leave the car at home and take the bus."

Negotiations for the city were done by Director of Human Resources TJ Karwandy. Tolley was pleased with the way the deal came together, with both sides working together to avoid arbitration.

"There's always going to be negotiations going on when it comes to the City of Moose Jaw and our unions," he added. "I've seen a marketing improvement in the relationship between the unions and management since Mr. Karwandy started here so I want to congratulate him for helping establish those relationships and of course the unions coming to the table with a positive attitude and working with us. I think good things are ahead for those kinds of negotiations."

UNIFOR Local 101R represents 18 Moose Jaw Transit employees in the Public Works & Utilities Department.

Jim Wiens, local chair for UNIFOR Local 101R - Lodge 204, said it was refreshing to see two sides who were willing to work together.

"We really are working toward a contract together," he stated. "Both sides are really strong. I have to really commend the members of the transit department. They really knew what they wanted. They knew very clearly what things they needed out of an agreement and how it made it so much easier for both sides to have frank open discussions and really see that there wasn't going to be a possibility of us going on strike."

Wiens also wanted to commend the paratransit drivers for their flexibility to make stops that aren't necessarily on bus routes.

He said that reaching an agreement after five months without one adds a lot of security for both sides, as well as for taxpayers.

An official contract signing was held Tuesday afternoon at city hall.