CUPE has sent a shot across the bow in advance of contract talks next year which the union says will be very different from those last year. However, Finance Minister Tom Osborne is not nervous.

All of the civil service gave concessions and agreed to “template” bargaining in the last round, accepting a four-year contract with no wage increase. Those contracts expire next year.

Minister Osborne says he’s not going to bargain in public, but he has no problem with CUPE demonstrating. Newfoundland and Labrador is heavily in debt, and Osborne notes that government is still borrowing $2-million a day.

He says they took a balanced approach in the contract talks.