Rainycrest contract ratified

After working without a contract for almost two years, CUPE members at Rainycrest Home for the Aged here now have an agreement.
Rainycrest’s board of management ratified the four-year agreement, which is retroactive to Dec. 31, 2001, at a meeting Wednesday.
No other details, such as wage or benefit increases, were available by press time today.
As previously reported, the 140 CUPE Local #65 members who make up Rainycrest’s unionized staff had voted more than 90 percent in favour of the tentative agreement back on Dec. 4.
This marks the last of a series of contract agreements for CUPE Local #65 members here.
Union members who make up the staff at the Fort Frances and District Association for Community Living, as well as the ACL’s board of management, both voted in favour Sunday of ratifying a tentative agreement struck Dec. 5.
That four-year deal—which is retroactive to July 1, 2002 and expires June 30, 2006—included a 10 percent hike in wages over four years as well as slight increases in pension and benefits.
And at the beginning of December, union members at the Fort Frances Clinic voted 95 percent in favour of a three-year deal after having worked without a contract since Aug. 1.
That deal included increased benefits, compassionate personal leaves, uniform allowances, and a 3.5 percent wage increase every year of the contract.