Share
The Nova Scotia Council of Health Care Unions, and the employers, (NSHA and IWK) have completed three days of conciliation and plan to meet again in January for another five days. The three days of meetings in November provided good discussion and some progress. However, a lot of work remains.
To date the parties have held 27 bargaining sessions to conduct a very complex set of negotiations that require bringing together collective agreements from all four unions (Unifor, NSGEU, CUPE, and NSNU) in the acute care and community care sectors.
The sector bargaining was imposed upon the unions when the provincial Liberal government created a single provincial health authority.
Despite some progress in negotiations, a number of very significant items remain outstanding including: job posting, job security, sick leave, group benefits, retiree benefits, vacation scheduling, leaves, overtime, hours of work and more.
This continues to be a challenging bargaining process but the Council is working well together to make sure progress continues on behalf of members.
It is important to note that the task was made much more difficult when the Nova Scotia Liberal government enacted legislation freezing the retirement allowance of union members and imposing wage restraint including two years with a zero per cent increase.
Coinciding with bargaining, the Council continues to work toward negotiating an essential services agreement (ESA) with the employers. The ESA is being negotiated for the first time and was required by another Liberal Government piece of legislation. The Liberal legislation prohibits the unions from conducting a strike until an essential services agreement is reached, which has severely limited the Council’s leverage at the bargaining table. Once established the ESA will determine which positions are deemed a part of an essential service to continue working in the event of a labour disruption, strike or lock-out.
The ESA will cover all 6,500 health care workers across the province, making it a very complex task. Adding to the complications of negotiating an ESA, the Employers’ essential services negotiators walked away from the table in the summer and have refused to come back.
Once the essential services negotiations are complete in the coming months, the Council expects to make more progress in bargaining new collective agreements.
The Health Care Council of Unions bargaining committee is made up of six members from NSGEU, three from CUPE and one from Unifor. The Nova Scotia Nurses Union (NSNU) is also part of the Health Care Council. Health Care Bargaining Council is the lead table in this round of healthcare negotiations. The committee representing administrative professionals, support and nursing are preparing to start their bargaining once an agreement is reached in health care.
For more information please contact Unifor bargaining committee members:
Susan Gill, National Representative @email
Jamie Pollock, President Local 4600 @email
