A Labour Relations Board ruling announced yesterday took contract negotiations between the city of Quesnel and its municipal workers up a notch.

The LRB granted the city an essential services order, placing it one step closer to a lockout of 114 municipal workers, according to press release issued yesterday by the municipal worker’s union, CUPE 1050.

Meanwhile, the union has applied for mediation in the dispute.

“We’ve been doing everything we can to reach a collective agreement and we believe Quesnel residents deserve the same from the City,” CUPE 1150 president Dan Weiman stated in the release.

“Does the City have a hidden agenda? If not, what’s the rush?”

At risk of being disrupted are essential services to the Qeusnel airport, garbage collection and the issuing of building permits.

The dispute centres around pay rates and benefits outlined in contract negotiations. According to the union, it’s about a basic cost of living increase.

On Aug. 17, employees turned down a three-year contract, offering a three per cent increase over three years and a 0.5 per cent benefit increase in the first year.

“It’s become an argument that is strictly about money,” said city manager Byron Johnson in an Aug. 13 release. “We have great employees, and from their vantage point, one or two percent may not seem like a lot of money. But when labour accounts for 56% of the City’s costs, those extra percentages add up quickly.”

Justin Langille reports on the landscape of work for The Tyee.