The 12 non-airline employees at Kamloops Airport have voted in favour of a new five-year agreement.

They’ll see wage increases of 2.5 per cent for 2018 and 2019, and then 2.25 per cent until 2022.

Pacific Regional Vice President for the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees Barry Tchir says the deal brings employees in line with other airports in Canada.

“These employees maintain the runways, the airfield, the buildings,” he said. “They do snow removal, they do grass cutting., and they do firefighter response.”

“They also respond to concerns of the airlines. They basically run the airport.”

Also increasing under the new deal is the standby premium from $16.50 to $18 an hour.

“There’s a lot of overtime there so we were trying to get them more vacation leave sooner,” Tchir added. “We got it down from eight years to seven years to get to the next step of vacation.”

“They have bereavement leave and family-related leave, we’ve taken the caps off those and allowed them more flexibility.”

He called it a well-done negotiation which satisfied the concerns raised by staff at the airport.

 

There’s also increased job security, Tchir noted, with new language in the deal added to reduce the amount of work that is contracted out.

Moving forward, two more positions will be added to the staff at the airport – an airport technician and a groundskeeper.

Each new position may be filled by more than one person, Tchir said they don’t have that information just yet.