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For Immediate Release
August 18, 2004
UNA launches billboard campaign:
Long-term care facilities want to lower standards
United Nurses of Alberta is putting up billboards around the province to alert Albertans that some long-term care operators are refusing to meet standards for nursing care in their facilities. In contract negotiations with Registered nurses, 17 long-term care facilities refuse to meet the same standards agreed to in over 140 other Alberta facilities.
“These remaining long-term care operators want to eliminate the nurse-in-charge, a quality of care standard that has been negotiated with other long-term care providers in the province,” says David Harrigan, UNA’s director of labour relations and chief negotiator. “This is a major quality of care issue, but it isn’t the only issue here, these Employers clearly are looking for a confrontation not an agreement,” he said.
The group of Employers is also refusing to match the recently negotiated agreement for other nurses in other areas as well, including health benefits, night shift premium and even the severance provision.
“By eliminating nurse-in-charge, they could lay off all their Registered nurses,” David Harrigan points out, “and they would have no obligation to pay them any severance.” He also notes that the largest Employers in the group are subsidiaries of the Capital and Calgary Health Regions, Capital Care in Edmonton and Carewest in Calgary. “We successfully reached an agreement for over 20,000 Health Region nurses, but these same Health Regions are blocking a deal for fewer than 500 RNs in their long term care facilities,” David Harrigan said.
“We have put up the names of most of the actual facilities on the billboards to make it clear which ones are insisting on lower standards of nursing care,” he said.
The billboards go up this week in Edmonton, Calgary and Lethbridge. In Camrose, UNA has placed ads on the local cable television network.
Mediated contract talks with the Employers ended on July 15th and no new dates have been set. The Employers holding up an agreement are in CCEBA (the Continuing Care Employers Bargaining Association), which represents 16 long-term care facilities in the province. The Bethany Care Society is in CCEBA but also insists on negotiating separately for its Cochrane facility, the 17th long-term care operation that remains without a contract.
At 142 other facilities providing long-term care, nurses are working with the standards of the provincial agreement, including nurse-in-charge. Although they are funded in the same way, these 17 facilities say they cannot agree to the same proposals and must have rollbacks, including to nurses’ health benefits “due to financial incapacity”.
UNA has filed a complaint with the Alberta Labour Relations Board (LRB) that the Employers are not negotiating in good faith, as they are refusing to provide financial information to substantiate their financial concerns.
“These facilities are funded in exactly the same way the others are,” notes David Harrigan. “It has nothing to do with finances, they have the same money the others do.”
CCEBA Long-term Care Facilities
Camrose
• Bethany Long Term Care Centre • Bethany Rosehaven Care Centre
Lethbridge
• St. Michael’s Health Centre
Calgary
• Bethany Care Society • Bethany Care Society Cochrane
• Carewest Colonel Belcher
Edmonton
• St. Joseph’s Hospital • St. Michael’s Long Term Care
• Youville Home (Grey Nuns - St. Albert) • Capital Care Dickensfield Capital Care Grandview
• Capital Care Lynnwood • Laurier House
• Mewburn Veterans Centre • Capital Care Norwood
• Capital Care Strathcona
Billboard Locations
The Billboards each specifically name one of the 17 long-term care facilities that have still refused to reach a new contract agreement. (note in the billboard descriptions N/O would mean north of, ES indicates east side, and F/S means facing south, etc.)
Edmonton
• St Albert Tr 500m N/O 156 St WS F/S • 97 St 63m S/O 135 Ave WS F/S
• Sherwood Park Freeway E/O 50 Street SS F/E • 75 St S/O 62 Ave ES F/N
Lethbridge
• 3rd Ave. S E/O 20th St. S NEC F/E • 4th Ave. E/O 4 St. S. NS F/W
Calgary
• Macleod Tr. N/O 50 Ave. S.W. WS F/N • Glenmore Tr. E/O 2 St. S.E. SS F/W
• Trans Canada Hwy W/O 73 St. N.W. SS F/E
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