Contract negotiations broke off Thursday between 60 unionized workers and the publicly owned Yukon Energy Corp., the workers' union announced this morning.

Laurie Butterworth, president of the Yukon Employees Union, told the Star at lunchtime today his team is hopeful the matter will be settled during conciliation, probably some time in February.

If it isn't, however, a new contract would ultimately be decided by an arbitrator, as Yukon Energy's unionized employees are not allowed to strike because they fall under the designation of "essential services,” just like the city's firefighters, Butterworth explained.

Generally speaking, most parties to a collective agreement who enter conciliation – where they still have input – prefer to have matters settled at that stage rather than have their contract ultimately decided by a single individual at arbitration.

The current three-year contract will expire Dec. 31.

Butterworth said the negotiating teams have been exchanging correspondence for about a month and began face-to-face meetings Monday. They decided Thursday morning they were too far apart on some issues to continue negotiations.

He said he could not identify the outstanding issues.

Yukon Energy spokesman Janet Patterson said there are 25 management personnel in addition to the union employees.