Manitoba Hydro announced on Friday June 5, 2020, that they have begun issuing layoff notices in order to meet the provinces demand to reduce labour costs in response to COVID-19.
The temporary notices will affect approximately 200 staff who are members of IBEW and UNIFOR. Hydro says the length of the layoff is four months.
Originally Manitoba Hydro anticipated as many a 700 people would be laid off .
“As I have said previously, this was absolutely not our preferred course of action,” said Jay Grewal, President and CEO of Manitoba Hydro.
Members of the Association of Manitoba Hydro Staff and Supervisory Employees, members of the Manitoba Hydro Professional Engineers’ Association and Corporate Exempt staff will all be taking three unpaid days off in lieu of layoffs. That works out to about a 1.2 hour reduction in wages per pay period between June 25 and March 31, 2021.
Grewal said that they are making all efforts to minimize the impact on service while continuing to maintain safety in all aspects of the operation.
“We worked extremely hard to avoid getting to this point. Unfortunately, we have no more flexibility,” Grewal said.
The first layoffs are expected to start in the next two to three weeks.
© News4.ca 2020
