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Under the existing rules, retirees who worked for two years in the public service can join the plan. The government argues two years is too short a time to access the plan and is extending that to six years.

The health plan is popular with retirees, with about three-quarters signing up for the plan when they retire. With the new cost sharing, the government estimates a retiree’s contribution cost would double from $261 to $550 a year.

Although the government is committed to the two major changes, it is willing to negotiate to ensure “current low income pensioners are not affected” by the increase in contributions. The government picks up the contribution costs for all existing public servants and that will remain unchanged.

The health plan is negotiated by the union-management National Joint Council. The pay and working conditions of public servants are negotiated in two separate tracks.

The traditional and often adversarial “positional bargaining” that the government and unions are about to begin is the primary one. The other is negotiated by the National Joint Council, where employees and management have developed 40 workplace policies and benefits for public servants since the Second World War.

The NJC negotiations have typically avoided the limelight and rancor of collective bargaining and the impasse over changing the health plan is one of the first impasses since the council was created in 1944.

The government is also continuing with its push to align the 17 pension plans of Crown corporations with its reforms to the public service plan. Crown employees will now pay half of the contribution costs and retirement age will be increased to 65.