SYDNEY, N.S. — The courtrooms in Sydney were quieter than usual Wednesday.
Crown prosecutors walked off the job provincewide Wednesday morning in protest of Bill 203, which they say takes away their right to arbitration.
“Today we are here and we are protesting the actions of the government,” said Rochelle Palmer, spokesperson for the Nova Scotia Crown Attorneys Association in Cape Breton, while gathered with other local prosecutors near Sydney-Whitney Pier MLA Derek Mombourquette’s office on King’s Road in Sydney.
“How we believe that the government has broken promises, we believe that the government has tried to pass a law that is going to take away our rights,” she said. “It’s going to take away rights that we have bargained with the government for and that the government agreed to.”
Palmer said Bill 203 in their view is a violation of their Charter rights and a violation of a framework agreement which they negotiated in good faith with government. Prosecutors didn’t have notice of that bill coming, she said.
Bill 203 takes away the Crown attorneys' right to binding arbitration to settle contract impasses and instead provides the right to strike.
Palmer said they are only asking for government to honour an agreement made in 2016. Their goal is to be back to the table for fair bargaining.
“We just want what we negotiated in 2016, which is a framework agreement which at this point is being dismantled and gutted by the anticipated legislation,” Palmer said. “We are here standing up for justice because as prosecutors that’s what we do every single day”
The association has 102 Crown attorneys employed by the Nova Scotia Public Prosecution Service, including 12 in Sydney and two in Port Hawkesbury.
“In the absence of any legal opinion from his lawyers, the premier’s resume is pretty thin to be assuring Nova Scotians that this bill is Charter compliant,” said Sydney Crown prosecutor Steve Drake.
Mombourquette, who is also Nova Scotia's minister of energy and mines, was in the legislature Wednesday and didn’t respond to an interview request by print deadline.
Prosecutors on the mainland protested outside the legislature in Halifax.
In Sydney, the protest moved to Charlotte Street at noon, with Crown prosecutor Steve Melnick in the lead, playing the drums to a chant of ‘Hey, hey, ho ho, Bill 203 has to go,' while escorted by members of the Cape Breton Regional Police Service. The sight was much to the delight of some of the 4,300 passengers aboard the MSC Meraviglia cruise ship — many holding up iPhones taking photos and videos — which docked on the Sydney waterfront on Wednesday morning.
The association is asking for a 17 per cent pay increase in wages over the next four years. Their last contract expired on March 31. The province offered a seven per cent increase over four years.
A 17 per cent raise would put Nova Scotia Crown attorneys in the middle of the range for what colleagues are paid across the country. The province said the lawyers are already the highest paid in Atlantic Canada and the pay bump would put them among the top third highest earners in the country. A senior Crown salary would increase to $160,000 from $149,149 under the Crown association's proposal, according to the province.
Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil said right now the prosecutors are in an illegal strike position. An injunction was filed to have the work stoppage ceased Wednesday afternoon.
The premier said they continue to negotiate to ensure that the Crown prosecutors have the rights associated with the rights of collective bargaining. The province fulfilled the obligation of the contract and is in negotiations for a new contract.
McNeil said the prosecutors have stayed firm on 17 per cent and they’re not moving.
“We’re not even close, we’re 10 per cent apart,” he said. “Why is it appropriate for any bargaining unit in this province to put 17 per cent on the province and not move because they know they can go to an arbitrator? What do I say to all those hard-working Nova Scotians?”
Tory Leader Tim Houston said the premier signed a contract with hard-working men and women, very educated people, very dedicated public servants. Houston said the premier has set that contract aside and he’s ripped it up. In doing so he’s disrespected the work these Crown attorneys do every single day, he added.
“They are exercising their right to bring attention to the fact that what they’re doing is important work,” he said. “What they want is respect from the government, (for) the premier that signed a contract with them to honour it.”
NDP labour spokesperson Tammy Martin said the McNeil Liberals’ continuous attack on collective bargaining is "astonishing.”
“We have seen this before and I bet we’ll see it again,” Martin said in a press release.
“The McNeil Liberals do not respect the bargaining process and when they don’t like where a deal is heading, they walk away from the table and push through legislation.”
In 2017 Martin said the Liberal government legislated the teachers’ contract and passed Bill 148 which imposed a four-year wage package on thousands of public sector workers. Both of these laws are currently being challenged in court for being unconstitutional, she added.
- With files from Saltwire Network
