Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman isn’t happy about taxpayers subsidizing a union boss’s salary.
Right now, the city covers 60 per cent of United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg president Alex Forrest's $116,000 annual salary. Prior to January of 2014, all of Forrest's compensation was paid for by taxpayers.
Mayor Bowman says the city will honour the deal in good faith, but he wants the provision scrapped during the next round of bargaining.
“I can't explain the deal, and it's a deal that we’ve been told is in perpetuity as long as Alex Forrest is in the position so it needs to be negotiated out with the other party…if I could unilaterally act, we'd be having a different conversation right now,” said Bowman.
The United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg calls the subsidy reasonable. It says the deal was negotiated fairly like any other benefit included in a collective agreement for members.
"It saves our members some money, and it's part of, it was part of a negotiations package, in the big scheme of things we don't believe it was a huge cost," said former UFFW VP Dave Naaykens.
The current labour deal between the city and UFFW expires in late 2020.
