Biden ‘antagonism’ to U.S. oil industry is strange: Daniel Yergin

"The rest of the world is saying this is really strange"

Author of the article:
Bloomberg News
David Wethe and Alix Steel
Publishing date:Nov 09, 2021 • 

A drill rig in Loving County, Texas. 

PHOTO BY ANGUS MORDANT/REUTERS FILES

While President Joe Biden has been “jaw-boning” OPEC nations to pump more crude, the rest of the world finds it odd that the leader of the top oil producer isn’t paying more attention to domestic shale, said oil historian Daniel Yergin.

“There’s a basic antagonism and lack of interest — indifference — to the industry, although it has 10.5 million people work in it,” Yergin, vice chairman of IHS Markit Ltd., said in a Bloomberg Television interview on Monday. “The rest of the world is saying this is really strange.”

As Biden considers tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to stem a surge in gasoline prices, Yergin said there isn’t much the White House can do. Talk of releasing crude from the reserve always comes up anytime gasoline prices are high, he said.

“President Biden has been in Washington a long time and knows that high gasoline prices are not good for incumbents,” Yergin said. “They’re obviously worried about 2022 and people do vote their wallets.”

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Pressure Mounts On Biden To Tap U.S. Oil Reserves

By Tom Kool - Nov 09, 2021, 2:00 PM CST

With OPEC+ refusing to pump more oil and Saudi Arabia increasing its official selling prices, pressure is increasing on President Biden to consider tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserves

Chart of the Week

- Netting a third straight month of declines, Chinese crude oil imports dropped to 8.94 million b/d in October, the lowest level since July 2018.  

- The regional electricity mandates contributed to a fall in utilization rates to 81%, a five-month low, despite robust demand for transportation fuels. 

- Independent refiners were limited in their refining as the Chinese government only issued its last batches of import quotas in early October, luckily China still has some 830 MMbbls of crude inventories, down 80 MMbbls on the year. 

Market Movers

- The US conglomerate GE (NYSE:GE) will be split into three public companies focusing on energy, healthcare, and aviation, sending its stock up 7% on the day. 

- In a rare move for a Western major, US oil firm ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) announced it took an FID on a $10 billion petchem project in China’s Guangdong province that would specialize in performance polymers. 

- Spain’s oil firm CEPSA is considering the sale of its chemicals business valued at $3.5 billion as it seeks to garner funds for its transition towards renewable energy, with Citibank chosen to identify possible bidders. 

Tuesday, November 09, 2021

The US’ standoff with OPEC has become the main talking point of this week - not only did Saudi Arabia rebuff Washington’s calls for more output, but it also hiked its December official selling prices way beyond market expectations. Whilst US crude inventories have reportedly risen for the third straight week, the pressure is now on the Biden Administration to consider further SPR releases. Meanwhile, jet cracks have bounced back to prominence on the back of travel restrictions being lifted globally (despite both Europe and Asia seeing case spikes), adding some unseasonal strength to middle distillates.

US House of Representatives Approves $1 Trillion Infrastructure Bill. The Biden Administration finally managed to ram through the bipartisan 1 trillion bill that would increase baseline funding on infrastructure by 550 billion and more than 100 billion on clean energy projects. 

Gazprom Starts Filling up European Storage. Despite some concerns that Russia’sGazprom (MCX:GAZP) did not book any additional capacity via Ukraine and kept Yamal-Europe deliveries into Germany at zero on Monday, the Russian firm stated today it started to send gas towards its European storage. 

Aramco Sees Spare Oil Capacity Shrinking. The Saudi national oil company Saudi Aramco (TADAWUL:2222) said it expects the current 3-4 million b/d global spare production capacity to diminish significantly next year once jet demand returns in full. 

Canada’s Oil Sands on Track for All-Time High. Despite the ongoing COP26 hype, Canada’s oil sands producers are on track to reach an all-time high production rate of 3.5 million b/d by December amidst a nationwide move to focus on tight budget discipline and higher dividends. 

Qatar Wants More LNG Tankers. In addition to its currently operating fleet of 45 Q-Flex and Q-Max carriers, Qatar has placed another order for six new LNG vessels with South Korean shipyards as it moves to bring its total LNG fleet tally to 100 by the end of 2027. 

China’s Coal Production Reaches Multi-Year Peak. Chinese authorities reported that daily average national coal output reached 11.93 million tons over the first week of November, setting the scene for further price declines as Beijing is doing its utmost to alleviate the risks of a prolonged energy crunch. Related: Oil Rally Reverses On Signs Of Cooling Demand

Venezuela Uses Sanctions Calm to Increase Output. Out of the public eye for several months, Venezuela’s national oil company PDVSA raised overall production to more than 600,000 b/d last month as it received Iranian condensate to dilute the extra-heavy crude from the Orinoco Belt. 

Saudi Arabia Wants to Pay Back Debts with Windfall Profits. According to media reports, Saudi Arabia is looking to amend the terms of a 16 billion loan due in 2023 and reduce the size of the credit facility, as Riyadh seeks to improve its credit ratings on the back of high oil prices. 

Alliance Refinery Set to Become Export Terminal. Unable to sell the 255,000 b/d Alliance Refinery which suffered the most damage from Hurricane Ida, US major Phillips 66 decided to convert the refinery into an oil export terminal, to be finalized by 2022. 

UK Funds Rolls Royce to Develop Nuclear. The UK government provided a $550 million backing to Rolls Royce (LON:RR) to develop the country’s first small modular nuclear reactor as London seeks non-intermittent energy sources to complement its vast wind capacity. 

Italy’s ENI Quits South Africa Block. The Italian oil major ENI (NYSE:E) withdrew from an offshore block in South Africa, a few months after its six-well drilling programs elicited a strong response from local environmentalists as the drilling would be near sites considered ecologically fragile. 

Morocco Looks Towards LNG After Algeria Feud. Having been cut off from Algerian pipeline gas exports on the back of a political spat, Morocco is now considering deploying an FSRU unit to start importing LNG as soon as possible. 

Gambia Re-Offers Block Relinquished by BP. Less than a year after BP (NYSE:BP)exited Gambia’s offshore block A1 citing its pivot towards low-carbon projects, the African nation’s government is offering the block in a new bidding round.

By Tom Kool for Oilprice.com

U.K. Rejects Alliance Seeking Fixed Date on Fossil Fuel Phaseout

November 9, 2021 EnergyNow Media

Nov 9, 2021

(Bloomberg)The U.K. won’t join an alliance of countries fixing a date to phase out fossil fuel production, in a move that calls into question the COP26 host nation’s climate leadership.The Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance is being spearheaded by the governments of Denmark and Costa Rica and is expected to announce new member countries on Wednesday at the climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland.

Limiting oil and gas production is one of the key priorities for capping global warming at 1.5-degrees Celsius. Earlier this year, the International Energy Agency said no new oil and gas fields should come online if a climate crisis is to be averted.

But the U.K. — which recently had to contend with record-high natural gas prices — says it won’t back the alliance because ending fossil fuel production could cause a cliff edge in energy supply.

“No other significant oil and gas producing nation has gone as far as the U.K. in supporting sector’s gradual transition to a low carbon future,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

“While the U.K.’s reliance on fossil fuels continues to fall, there will continue to be ongoing but diminishing need for oil and gas over the coming years while we ramp up renewable energy capacity.”

The U.K. is seeking to become climate neutral by 2050 and in March announced a plan to decarbonize oil and gas production in the North Sea.

The Sponsors of COP26 Are Behind the Corporate Greenwashing Agenda

COP26 has been sold as a conference where world leaders will finally tackle climate change. But for its corporate sponsors, the conference is an opportunity to greenwash their practices of polluting for profit.

Former US president Barack Obama speaks during day nine of COP26 on November 8, 2021, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Ian Forsyth / Getty Images)

BYROBBIE KIRK
JACOBIN
11.08.2021

This month’s COP26 conference in Glasgow brings together world leaders behind a promise to finally take effective action on climate change. The profiles of those leaders themselves, whose grand statements have been plastered across the TV screens of the world, leave plenty to be desired: Most of the evidence suggests that they are unfit to lead on an issue that the rest of the year they basically ignore.

But beyond the sound bites, a more realistic understanding of the conference can be found by taking a deeper look into the “principal partners” that the conference’s website so proudly presents. If mainstream commentators were surprised by Greta Thunberg’s description of COP26 as a “greenwashing festival” and a “celebration of blah blah blah,” there was plenty of evidence for this trajectory in its list of corporate sponsors.

First up is Unilever, one of the world’s largest polluters, which produces enough plastic to cover eleven football pitches per day. A quick look at some plastic pollution NGOs confirms a considerable overlap between companies involved in initiatives supposedly intended to reduce plastic waste and those who produce the most plastic waste. Last year, Unilever elicited widespread praise for making moves toward sustainable palm oil production, but that shift only came after a long-standing history of relationships with rogue actors destroying rainforests, according to the Rainforest Action Network. (Another similar consumer giant partnered with COP is IKEA, which produces more emissions when shipping its cargo around the world than even Amazon.)

Unilever is followed by Scottish gas giants SSE and Scottish Power. In October last year, SSE was named as Scotland’s second-biggest polluter. One study from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency in 2019 found that SSE produces more than 1.6 million tons of carbon dioxide from their Peterhead power station each year. Another partner, National Grid — the company responsible for running the country’s electricity network — has faced challenges by activists over its decision not to meet the standards set by the 2015 Paris Climate Accords.

Then we come to the tech giant Microsoft. Microsoft is famous for its questionable work practices, including the alleged use of child labor. In environmental terms, a quick Google search confirms that Microsoft is doing everything it can to tackle climate change and you shouldn’t investigate any further. The company makes the bold statement of intent to be carbon-neutral by 2025, and indeed, it looks as though it may be successful — but its collaboration with major extractors throws the usefulness of this label into doubt. In Texas, for example, Microsoft has to help extract more than 50,000 barrels of oil per day from the Permian basin.

The example of Microsoft shows the major limitations that come with individualizing “carbon-neutral” goals. Failing to consider the collective processes through which these companies profit from one another enables them to evade meaningful criticism and change. Another example is Sky, which claims to be headed towards carbon neutrality; Sky’s partnership with Qatar Airways paints a different picture of the media group’s commitment to zero emissions. Similarly, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is in partnerships in a number of carbon-emitting industries despite its claim to be going “carbon-neutral.”

Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which also features among the list of partners, was found in 2019 to be one of the highest polluting companies in Scotland. To be fair to GSK, a large proportion of that pollution comes from the greenhouse gas contained in the inhalers it manufactures, which, according to the Financial Times, is 1,500 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

There is an alternative type of inhaler — a “dry powder” inhaler — that is common in Scandinavia, but these are not suitable for everyone, so GSK is looking into other options. It’s hard not to wonder whether the impetus to find those green alternatives is reduced when the polluting version currently sells in the United States for between $250 and $350 per unit — lasting about a month — to asthma suffers who have no other choice.

COP26’s retail backing comes from Sainsbury’s, one of the UK’s largest supermarket stores with over 1,400 locations nationwide. In 2019, Greenpeace named Sainsbury’s as “the worst” supermarket for reducing plastic waste. The appearance of another British-based consumer goods company, Reckitt, on the list of official partners also raised the hackles of climate campaigners, given its reliance on Wilmar International for palm oil resources. Wilmar has been criticized not only for the deforestation commonly associated with palm oil production, but also implicated in alleged human rights abuses, including the use of child labor, according to Amnesty International.

Finally, we come to the transportation giant Jaguar Land Rover. This company has, as recently as 2019, had to recall over 40,000 vehicles for emitting more carbon emissions than officially stated. A 2017 white paper found Land Rover to be the worst performing car manufacturer on the planet in terms of emissions, with new Land and Range Rover models producing several times more nitrogen oxide emissions than the average new car. The now merged company has even faced fines for “lagging behind” their competitors in the race to reduce emissions.

Not every company involved in sponsoring COP26 has such explicitly poor climate credentials as some of those listed above, and nearly all of them have made commitments to become carbon-neutral in a maximum of a couple of decades. But these corporate giants have already done serious environmental damage, and the evidence gives strong indication that their latest commitments are not to be trusted.

Private companies do not exist to serve the needs of the people or the fight against climate change. Their single goal is to profit, and the imperative for profit will reliably outweigh any of their green concerns. For many, sponsoring COP26 serves that goal by acting as an opportunity to greenwash their own responsibility in the crisis we now face.

For climate action to be successful, it must do away with the notion of corporate sponsors. World leaders cannot take hospitality, money, and direction from those they should be fighting in the battle to save the planet. What we need is an economic system that puts people and planet before profit — and that can never be built with the support of corporate interests.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robbie Kirk is a student at Aberdeen University.

Climate NGOs threaten legal action against German car giants


EURACTIV with Reuters
Nov 9, 2021

Greenpeace and Deutsche Umwelthilfe demand that the automakers stop producing combustion engine cars by 2030 - earlier than the 2035 effective ban proposed by the EU in July. 

[LanaElcova / Shutterstock.com]

Greenpeace and German environmental NGO Deutsche Umwelthilfe will take legal action against Volkswagen, BMW, Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz, and gas and oil firm Wintershall Dea if they do not step up policies to tackle climate change, they said on Friday 5 November.

“Negotiations at COP26 in Glasgow indicate that the 1.5-degree target is at stake and can only be met with a bold change of course in politics and business. But while people suffer from floods and droughts triggered by the climate crisis, CO2 emissions from transport continue to rise,” said Martin Kaiser, executive director of Greenpeace Germany.

“Car companies like Volkswagen need to take responsibility and act much faster to phase out the highly-polluting internal combustion engine, and decarbonise their activities with no further delay,” he added.

The cases would be modelled on one brought against Royal Dutch Shell in the Netherlands last year. It argued the company’s lack of climate action constituted a failure in its duty of care to citizens, which led to a May court ruling mandating the company to reduce its CO2 output by 45% from 2019 levels by 2030.

Greenpeace and Deutsche Umwelthilfe demand that the automakers stop producing combustion engine cars by 2030 – earlier than the 2035 effective ban proposed by the EU in July – and that Wintershall Dea refrains from exploring any new oil and gas fields from 2026.

These deadlines are necessary to meet the goals of the Paris climate accords and German climate law, the NGOs argue.

They set a deadline of a few weeks for the companies to respond to their demands. Should they fail to do so, the NGOs will file lawsuits in German courts, they said.

Daimler and BMW said they were committed to the goals of the Paris climate accords and were already on the path to climate neutrality.

On 14 July, the EU announced plans to ban the production of new cars and vans that produce carbon emissions by 2035 as part of its ‘Fit for 55’ climate package, a series of laws aimed at reducing emissions across the bloc by 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.

At present, EU-produced cars are allowed to emit 95g of carbon per kilometre driven. Under the EU proposals, this will be scaled back by 55% by 2030, moving to 0g in 2035.

However, NGOs have pushed for a more ambitious timeline, highlighting member states, including Ireland, Sweden, and the Netherlands, that have set a 2030 deadline for banning the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles.

The European Commission has said it expects “almost 100%” of cars on the roads in 2050 to be emissions-free.

N.B. government behind financial problems of CUPE pensions, ruling suggests

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Province ordered to fix $69.2 million funding shortfall

Robert Jones · CBC News · Posted: Nov 09, 2021 6:30 AM AT | Last Updated: November 9

CUPE Local 1253 represents about 1,900 New Brunswick school custodians, maintenance workers and school bus drivers. Its pension plan has a $69.2 million deficit that an arbitrator blamed on the province and ordered it to fix. (Camille LaCroix/Radio-Canada)

New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs has made the poor financial condition of two CUPE pension plans that serve school board workers a central issue in a strike by public-sector unions, even though it was the province that drove the pension plans into financial trouble in the first place, according to a labour arbitration case.

In a decision issued June 28, experienced national labour arbitrator Elizabeth MacPherson found the province failed to meet its obligation to fully fund the pension of CUPE Local 1253, representing about 1,900 New Brunswick school custodians, maintenance workers and school bus drivers, over several years.  

That helped drive it into a $69.2 million deficit as of Jan. 1, 2018, its last full actuarial evaluation.

CUPE president Stephen Drost says members of locals 2745 and 1253 have made all of their required pension contributions and are not responsible for their poor financial condition. (Jacques Poitras/CBC News)

In her ruling, MacPherson ordered the government to begin paying $5.5 million per year as part of a 15-year plan to fix a deterioration in the pension that years of underfunding caused.

"I find that by failing to make the contributions to the Plan necessary to fund the going concern deficit identified by the Actuaries, the Employer has breached the collective agreement," wrote MacPherson, the former chair of the Canada Industrial Relations Board, first appointed in 2007 by the former government of Stephen Harper.  

"As remedy for the breach, the Employer is directed to commence making regular contributions to the Plan in accordance with the 2018 Actuarial Valuation in amounts sufficient to eliminate the going concern deficit within 15 years."  

MacPherson noted the figure of $5.5 million per year was an estimate from 2018 of what is required to fix the pension shortfall and may have to be updated when a 2021 actuarial valuation of the deficit is made available.

She is in private practice now in Ontario and was jointly picked by the province and CUPE to rule on the dispute, which came forward as a union grievance in 2018

• Higgs wants striking employees to be willing to discuss pension changes

Another grievance to be heard

A second nearly identical grievance filed by CUPE Local 2745, the union representing school administrative staff, also alleges government wrongly starved its pension plan of millions of dollars in required contributions.

That grievance is scheduled to be heard next year.

Higgs has been criticizing the financial condition of both pensions, which are two of only three defined benefit plans left among New Brunswick government employees. The third plan belongs to provincial court judges.

• Pension reforms have union support, Higgs says

• CUPE wants to intervene in public service pension lawsuit

Defined benefit plans guarantee employees agreed-upon amounts of retirement income and benefits. Although employees and the employer both contribute to a pension fund to pay those costs, any unexpected shortfall is a financial responsibility of the employer alone.

Most New Brunswick government unions were moved from defined benefit to "targeted benefit" pension plans in 2014,  but the two CUPE locals had special wording in their collective agreements that blocked the province from switching them over.

Workers are among lowest paid 

The two plans serve employees who are among the lowest paid in government.  

According to the province's latest financial statements, members of the two unions make an average of just under $36,000 per year with retired members of CUPE Local 2745 earning average annual pensions of $8,724. Average pensions of former CUPE Local 1253 members are $11,979.

"They are no way a gold-plated pension plan," said Theresa McAllister, president of Local 2745.

The pension plans have been depicted as financial wrecks in government messaging as part of an effort to pressure the two unions to give them up for cheaper retirement plans with benefits the province does not have to guarantee.

Theresa McAllister (in pink sweater) is president of CUPE Local 2745, whose members, she says, earn under $36,000 on average, with retirees collecting average annual pensions under $9,000. (CBC)

In government news releases, the plans are described as being unsustainable and in financial "jeopardy" and last week Higgs told the legislature that winning changes to the two plans was a key government goal in its current labour fight with multiple CUPE unions

 "That is one of the stalemates in the CUPE discussion," he said

Largely government's doing

Both pension funds are in a serious deficit position, but according to MacPherson's account of what happened to the CUPE 1253 pension, this is largely government's doing for unilaterally failing to make regular "special payments" to keep the plans fully funded as it is required to do. 

MacPherson said special payments are typical in defined benefit plans.

• CUPE official backs pension reforms despite protests

Iris Lloyd is President of Local 1253 and said evidence gathered by the union and presented to MacPherson showed that as a deficit appeared in the plan following the financial crash of 2008, regular special payments from the province began but then suddenly stopped in 2013.  

Higgs was minister of finance at the time and the end of special payments triggered a downward spiral in the pension's financial position from which it has not recovered.    

New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs says a decision from a labour arbitrator that the province owes CUPE 1253's pension plan $69.2 million is not why he's pushing for the plan to be changed. (Government of New Brunswick)

The former government of Brian Gallant did make a $10.1 million retroactive payment in 2018 to try to shore up the plan but it remains in a significant hole.

"Premier Higgs back in 2013 decided to stop making payments into our pension plan and therefore we were able to prove that he purposely underfunded our pension plan by that $69.2 million," Lloyd said in an interview. 

"You really have to talk to Premier Higgs about why these plans are in the shape they are in." 

In her decision, MacPherson said the province was wrong to withhold special payments from the plan that were needed for it to remain financially healthy.

"Because this is a collectively bargained pension plan, the Employer is not free to simply ignore or amend the provisions of the Plan text or otherwise act unilaterally, as it has been able to do with pension plans applicable to other bargaining units that are solely controlled by the Employer," MacPherson wrote. 

"Any changes to this Plan, including the parties' respective obligations under the Plan, must be negotiated by the Employer and the Union."

Future of arbitration case

The province has filed for a judicial review of MacPherson's decision. 

Asked Monday about MacPherson's ruling, Higgs said it is unclear who is to blame for the two pensions' poor financial position.  

"We can all have our different views on whether it was funded properly or not, but I'm not an actuary," said Higgs.

He also denied his goal in changing the pension plans is to escape the expense of MacPherson's funding order. 

"Absolutely not." he said

N.B. Premier Blaine Higgs says ‘likely in for a long haul’ on public sector strike

By Staff The Canadian Press
Posted November 8, 2021 


WATCH: Premier Blaine Higgs is drawing a line in the sand in the CUPE labour dispute. The sticking point is over moving two union locals to a new pension model. Nathalie Sturgeon reports.

New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs is showing no signs of bending on his government’s latest contract offer to striking public sector workers.

The strike by thousands of public servants, including school bus drivers, educational support staff and workers in transportation, corrections and the community college system, entered Day 11 on Monday.

The two sides are close on the issue of wages, with the government offering 10 per cent over five years and a 25-cent-per-hour annual increase, but the province is also proposing contentious pension changes for two locals.

The premier says the two locals’ pension plans are underfunded and unsustainable, adding that if the union won’t budge on the pension issue, then “we’re likely in for a long haul here.”

The union earlier rejected the proposed pension changes, and CUPE New Brunswick representatives were not immediately available for comment Monday.

On Friday, the government issued an emergency order forcing striking workers in the health-care sector to return to work, threatening fines up to $20,400 per day for employees who refuse to comply.

CUPE filed an emergency complaint about the order to the province’s Labour and Employment Board, but the complaint was dismissed by the board in a ruling filed Sunday. In its complaint, CUPE had alleged that the province was attempting to “compel, by intimidation and threat,” employees to “refrain from exercising their right to strike.”

CUPE seeks clarity around mandatory orderCUPE seeks clarity around mandatory order

The board said it was not satisfied “on the basis of the the evidence led” that there was a violation of the Public Service Labour Relations Act.

The government has also locked out members of two locals that represent school staff, and schools across the province have moved to remote learning as a result.

Higgs says the union must agree to let the two locals in question enter a process to determine a new model for their pensions. Taxpayers, he said, can’t continue to pay into a model “that has proven to have outlived its liabilities.”

“People now live longer and are retired longer than the pension formula was ever designed for. We have people retired for longer than they have worked in many cases.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2021.

— with a file from Rebecca Lau

Labour board dismisses CUPE complaint after some workers ordered back to work

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Union representing health-care workers who were forced

 back to job alleges intimidation by government

Hadeel Ibrahim · CBC News · Posted: Nov 08, 2021 

Thousands of striking and locked-out public-sector workers and supporters gather at the legislature in Fredericton on Tuesday. More than 3,000 of these workers were forced back to work over the weekend. (Jacques Poitras/CBC News)

A New Brunswick labour tribunal has dismissed an emergency complaint filed by the Canadian Union of Public Employees after the province used a COVID-19 emergency order to force health-care workers off the picket line.

On Friday, Public Safety Minister Ted Flemming said cabinet was using the Emergency Measures Act to issue an order forcing more than 3,000 striking health-care workers to go back to their jobs.

Over the weekend, the affected custodians, patient services workers and laundry workers went back to work while their union challenged the order with the New Brunswick Labour and Employment Board.

According to board ruling filed Sunday, CUPE alleged the province was trying to "compel, by intimidation or threat," employees who are not designated essential to stop strikin

In its response, the province first said the labour board lacked the jurisdiction to consider the mandatory order. The province also said the order is lawful and denied CUPE's allegations.

The order does not note the reasons why the complaint was dismissed, except to say the chair was not satisfied that the province violated the Public Service Labour Relations Act.

The full written reasons are typically completed weeks after the decision itself is made.

On Saturday, CUPE president Steve Drost said the union's lawyers are looking into how they could challenge it.

"It's simply a tool that was used to interfere with these members' legal rights," Drost said of the back-to-work order.

Higgs ready to defend use of emergency act

Asked how the province would respond if CUPE went to court over use of the emergency act, Premier Blaine Higgs said the province would continue to defend the "health and safety of our citizens."  

"It's just unfortunate that CUPE would continue to challenge us in court when we have an Emergency Measures Act in place, when we have a pandemic [in] the fourth wave," Higgs told reporters Monday.

"We have situations in our hospitals that need to be addressed and we were cancelling elective surgeries and starting to get to a point where we could go beyond that.

He said he found CUPE's position hard to understand, but if the union continues to challenge the back-to-work order, "we will defend it fully in the courts."

Offer, counteroffer, pension impasse

On Thursday night, the province made CUPE officials an offer that's closer to what the union has been asking for when it comes to wage increases.

The offer includes a two per cent increase over five years, plus a 25 cent increase per hour over the same number of years. 

The province's offer also includes a memorandum of agreement, where to move forward, both sides would have to agree to allow pension representatives to find a "new retirement vehicle" for two locals. 

Higgs said Monday that the government proposal of wage increases totalling 15 per cent over five years reflected the  good work of employees.

"This offer reflects what people have done throughout the pandemic," said Higgs.

The two locals, one representing school support staff such as bus drivers, and the other representing educational and clerical assistants, are the only ones remaining with no shared-risk pension plan.

READ: The province's new emergency order forcing health-care workers back to work

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The transition to shared-risk pension plans has been contentious. In 2016, CUPE joined a lawsuit against the "unilateral conversion" of the province's public service pension plan into a shared-risk plan.

A shared-risk plan means an employee's retirement payout could increase or decrease depending on how their pension plan is performing.

"The rights of CUPE members and many other public-sector workers were violated when the government unilaterally imposed pension changes on workers, in violation of their right to free collective bargaining," Daniel Légère, then-president of CUPE New Brunswick, said in 2016.

Drost posted a video on Sunday explaining the counteroffer CUPE submitted in response. In it, he outlined wage increases that are almost identical to the ones the province was offering. However, the retirement-plan point in the province's offer would be "major concession" by the union.

Back-to-work emergency order and impact on strike, health care

The health-care workers were ordered back to work Friday after a full week of striking.

In one group, Local 1252 representing support staff and maintenance workers in hospitals, 70 per cent were designated essential and were still working.

However, the CEOs of the province's two health authorities said the system is close to a breaking point, and the remaining 30 per cent were needed urgently.

Over the week of the strike, COVID-19 testing and contact-tracing capacity was significantly reduced, with multiple vaccination clinics cancelled.

If workers don't report to work once ordered, the province could fine them between $480 and $20,400 for each day they don't comply, according to the new emergency order.

On Monday, a few days after the emergency order was enacted, Higgs said he's been impressed with the returning employees' work ethic.

"I've been so impressed with the people that have come back to work and have done so and integrated right back into the workforce as we thought or hoped they would, because they are our friends and neighbours."

That doesn't mean they're content, according to the union. Chris Curran, the president of Local 1251 representing laundry workers, said earlier that members were frustrated and angry with the use of the emergency order.

"Members feel like they've been cheated of their right to strike."