The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia reached a tentative four-year agreement with the Canadian Office and Professional Employees' Union, Local 378, on Friday, according to a press release from the union.
The agreement cannot be ratified until it is voted on by the union members and agreed to by ICBC's board of directors.
Approximately 4,600 of the union's members work for ICBC.
"This agreement secures some important foundational elements we will build on in future negotiations," David Black, COPE 378 president, said in the release. "The wage increases will keep our members from falling further behind, and they will, at long last, get maternity and parental leave top-up."
The agreement includes staggered wage increases of one per cent for the period from July 1 of this year to Jan. 1, another one per cent increase on Jan. 1, another for next July 1, and another for Oct. 1, 2013.
The agreement covers the period from June 1, 2010 to June 30, 2014, according to the release. The previous agreement expired March 31, 2010.
The union was told that the B.C. government's net-zero wage mandate for 2010 and 2011 applied to the members, so there were zero increases for those two years, according to Sage Aaron, media relations contact for the union.
ICBC will also top up maternity and parental leave benefits as of July 1 of next year.
The Crown corporation has committed to conducting a new workload study, the release stated.
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