For Immediate Release
September 15, 2003
UNA says Health Regions must stop misleading communication about contract negotiations
United Nurses of Alberta are taking legal action to stop Alberta Health Regions from repeatedly misleading nurses and the public about the issues in contract negotiations. Today UNA is filing an unfair labour practices complaint with the Alberta Labour Relations Board (LRB) asking that the Regions correct inaccuracies and misleading information it has distributed in letters mailed directly to nurses and published in public newspaper and radio advertising.
Registered nurses vote today on the Employers’ proposed new contract plan. Balloting goes on in some Locals until 8 pm; the results will be tabulated overnight and released Tuesday, September 16.
“This is NOT a strike vote,” Heather Smith notes. “As a regular component of negotiations we are taking the offer to the members. We expect they will reject it and dispel any possible delusions that it is a fair, acceptable or safe contract plan.”
The UNA complaint to the LRB is that the Health Regions have broken the law by communicating directly with nurses, attempting to pressure them to accept the plan in the mediator’s recommendations. “This amounts to interference with the representation of employees by UNA” reads the complaint.
“The Health Regions want people to believe the Employer’s contract plan is a compromise,” Heather Smith says. “Not only is it not a compromise, it would turn nursing practice upside down in this province and threaten safe nursing care of patients. Nurses cannot in good conscience agree to these proposals.”
UNA also published newspaper ads today demanding that Health Regions “Tell the Truth” about negotiations.
Last week the Health Regions applied for compulsory arbitration in an attempt to force nurses into a bad contract. “Arbitration will not lead successfully to an agreement,” Heather Smith said.
“Far from improving conditions for nurses and providing a safer working environment, the plan the Health Regions want to impose would drive the nurses we need out of the province or out of the profession,” she says. “They want to be able to order nurses from hospital to hospital and site to site, shuffle nurses around like cogs in health care machine. That’s not the way nursing works, it’s dangerous for patients.”
Nearly 20,000 Registered nurses are eligible to vote today, all UNA members employed by Health Regions as well as those with other health Employers also currently in bargaining: the Continuing Care Employers Bargaining Association (long-term care), The Good Samaritan Society, the Alberta Cancer Board and others.
“The contract being proposed is for Health Region nurses, but it would set the standard and nurses of other Employers could expect to face similar terms. There’s every reason for them to vote on this plan as well,” Heather Smith said.
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