# Union Coverage And No-COLA Draft Basis

Updated: 2026-09-18

This is a working 2027 budget assumption based on the public organization
chart, the City's labour-relations material, and the 2025 salary disclosure.
It is a draft budgeting tool.

## Confirmed bargaining units

The City's labour-relations material identifies three bargaining units:

1. **CUPE 1189-00, Inside Workers.** The City report identifies 26 full-time
   employees and one contract employee. The unit covers inside work in areas
   including Corporate Services, Community Services, and Public Works and
   Engineering.
2. **CUPE 1189-01, Outside Workers.** The unit covers Public Works, Parks,
   Cemetery Operations, Water, and Wastewater. The current agreement runs to
   March 31, 2027.
3. **Owen Sound Professional Fire Fighters Association, Local 531.** This is
   the fire-service bargaining unit.

The no-automatic-increase draft excludes salary bases assigned to those
bargaining units. Their agreements and employment terms continue to govern
their compensation.

For eligible non-union positions, the draft protects the published
Grey-Bruce living-wage benchmark. Positions at or above that benchmark receive
no automatic cost-of-living increase in the working scenario. Positions below
the benchmark may receive increases until they reach it, and the floor would
rise when the published living wage rises. This is a planning policy intended
to connect public compensation with resident incomes while protecting the
lowest-paid employees; it is not a planned pay cut.

Sources: [City labour-relations report](https://pub-owensound.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=42376),
[CUPE 1189-01 agreement notice](https://www.owensound.ca/news-and-public-notices/posts/city-of-owen-sound-and-union-cupe-1189-ratify-new-agreement-for-outside-workers/),
and [City fire annual report](https://pub-owensound.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=46023).

The successor-term dates and potential negotiation benefits are recorded in the
[collective bargaining calendar](collective-bargaining-calendar.md). Negotiated
union savings remain separate from the no-COLA screen until complete loaded
employer-cost data and successor terms are available.

## Expanded maximum non-union planning screen

The earlier 18-seat case was a conservative floor. This expanded screen is the
maximum currently mappable from the public chart and salary material. It
includes every priced management, statutory, supervisory, professional and
support role that is not identified in the reviewed material as CUPE 1189-00,
CUPE 1189-01 or Fire Local 531. It therefore includes roles whose bargaining
unit status still needs confirmation. It does not silently classify the
remaining white or unpriced chart seats as unionized.

The additional public salary records are 2025 salary-paid amounts, not a
complete 2027 employer-cost schedule. The charted ranges are rounded planning
bands already shown in the organization chart.

| Screen group | Seats | Low salary base | Working salary base | High salary base |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| Original identified management and professional floor | 18 | `$2,397,373` | `$2,397,373` | `$2,397,373` |
| Additional public-salary roles not marked as bargaining-unit seats | 9 | `$1,142,800` | `$1,142,800` | `$1,142,800` |
| Charted `$80,000-$90,000` roles | 9 | `$720,000` | `$765,000` | `$810,000` |
| Charted `$90,000-$100,000` roles | 6 | `$540,000` | `$570,000` | `$600,000` |
| **Expanded priced screen** | **42** | **`$4,800,173`** | **`$4,875,173`** | **`$4,950,173`** |

The additional nine public-salary roles are City Clerk, Building and
Maintenance, Fire Chief, three water and wastewater superintendents, Fire
Prevention Officer, Fire Prevention Inspector and Training Officer. The 15
charted salary-band roles are communications, information technology, Clerk's
Office, geomatics, development, building and planning seats shown in the
organization chart. The detailed membership of this screen is preserved in
[`maximum-nonunion-seat-screen.csv`](maximum-nonunion-seat-screen.csv).

Applying the 3% comparison figure used in the 2026 budget produces this
expanded planning range:

| Expanded screen | Avoided 3% increase |
| --- | ---: |
| Low | `$144,005` |
| **Working midpoint** | **`$146,255`** |
| High | `$148,505` |

The draft uses **`$146,255`** as the working midpoint. This extends the
previous `$71,921` floor by **`$74,334`**. The result is still a planning
amount: salary-paid records, rounded bands, vacancies, benefits and actual
employment status must be reconciled before it becomes a realized levy
saving.

Thirty additional City non-frontline chart seats remain unpriced and unresolved
after the explicitly bargaining-unit fire-captain and floater seats are set
aside. Their
titles include finance, human resources, facilities, planning, parks,
environmental, water, waste and fire administration work. They are not treated
as unionized in this analysis; the public material simply does not provide a
salary or seat-level bargaining-unit assignment for them. A current position
register could therefore expand the maximum beyond the priced screen.

## How the 2027 scenario uses it

The working scenario starts with the 2026 levy and carries eligible above-floor
non-union compensation forward without an automatic 3 percent increase. It
assumes the December 31 CUPE
1189-00 successor agreement produces no general wage increase for 2027. The
expanded midpoint `$146,255` is an avoided comparison increase, not an extra
levy reduction from the 2026 reference. The scenario also pauses the `$22,500`
Sustainable Community Initiatives line, replaces the `$25,000` resident survey
allocation with lower-cost participation channels, and applies the draft
`$174,189` software-maintenance reduction. The `$120,000` open-source
transition allowance remains a separate implementation allocation.

| Measure | Amount |
| --- | ---: |
| 2026 existing-resident levy reference | `$38,133,221` |
| Three-percent all-staff comparison benchmark | `$38,721,045` |
| December 31 inside-worker settlement case | `$38,133,221` |
| Expanded priced-screen avoided comparison growth | `$146,255` |
| Sustainable Community Initiatives pause | `($22,500)` |
| Resident-survey replacement | `($25,000)` |
| Software-maintenance reduction | `($174,189)` |
| **Working 2027 operating levy** | **`$37,913,750`** |
| Change from 2026 reference | **`-$219,471` / `-0.58%`** |

The older 20%, 30% and 40% salary-and-benefit sensitivities remain useful as
whole-budget comparison cases. The expanded priced screen shows the scale of
avoided growth against the comparison benchmark; it is not subtracted again
from the flat-wage working draft.

## Remaining mapping work

The next useful City disclosure is a position-level schedule showing each
seat's department, bargaining-unit coverage, salary, benefits, vacancy status,
and 2027 budget line. That would expand the working floor to all eligible
non-union employees and replace the percentage sensitivities with a seat-by-
seat calculation.