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For Immediate Release July 30, 2003
Alberta’s nurses are not at all surprised that Health Regions have accepted the Mediator’s recommendations, which gave them almost everything they had asked for.
“The mediator makes reference time again “as per the Employers’ proposals” and produced a one-sided set of recommendations that are dangerous for the future of nursing care and for patients,” says United Nurses of Alberta Vice-president Bev Dick.
“The mediator’s recommendations would be disastrous for health care in the province. Implementing them would worsen working conditions for nurses so badly that we would see early retirement numbers increase even further,” Bev Dick said.
“We were disappointed to see the Health Regions spending thousands more public health dollars on misleading advertising,” Bev Dick said.
Contrary to the Helth Regions’ advertising message, UNA has not threatened a strike or called a strike vote but is looking to negotiations to reach a contract that will retain the nurses the province needs.
“We need to reach a workable agreement for nurses not crank up this rhetoric,” Bev Dick said.
UNA is currently talking with the Health Regions about setting dates for further negotiations.
She points out that report after report, including the recent one from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, has called for increased flexibility in scheduling for nurses, reducing workloads and improving working conditions. “What the mediator proposes is entirely flexibility for health Employers, not for nurses,” Bev Dick points out. “They would be able to move nurses from site to site at will and unilaterally assign nurses to permanent night or evening shifts. This gives Employers flexibility but not nurses. The reports make it clear that nurses need to be able to make choices about their schedule, not leave it up to Employers.”
UNA has called a province-wide membership vote on the mediator’s recommendations for September 15. “Our negotiating committee rejected the recommendations but we need to make it clear that working nurses see full well what these changes would do to their working lives,” Bev Dick says.
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