The change in government following this week’s election shouldn’t affect the collective bargaining process involving the province’s largest public sector union.

NAPE President Jerry Earle, offering his congratulations to Tony Wakeham, says the business of collective bargaining continues.

“We’re going through the process now of prepping for what we call public sector collective bargaining. That involves about 20,000 of our members. Just next week…all of our health care bargaining come in, then on Thursday and Friday all of our core government and our agencies, boards and commissions bargaining units come in, which is eight of those.”

He says governments change, but the union’s approach to bargaining doesn’t change. One of NAPE’s priorities will be meeting with and getting to know some of Tony Wakeham’s new cabinet.

“Obviously the minister of finance is a key one, and who they place in Treasury Board and Human Resource Secretariat, because there’ll be a change in all those levels. Not only will we see new faces of politicians, but for us as unions and bargaining committees, we’re going to see new people that will be brought in on senior bureaucratic levels.”