For Immediate Release
March 25, 2003
UNA demands RHA CEO be fired
Misleading statements to MLAs not consistent
with position of responsibility
UNA President Heather Smith has demanded that Regional Health Authorities bargaining steering committee chair Pearl Babiuk be fired, in a letter she wrote today to Health and Wellness Minister Gary Mar and Lakeland Health Region Board chair Ernie Isley.
“Ms. Babiuk has been dangerously misleading Members of the Legislative Assembly and Albertans in letters and advertising that grossly misrepresent the issues in current contract negotiations with nurses,” Heather Smith said when she released her letter to Mar and Isley.
Ms. Babiuk is the Chief Executive Officer of the Lakeland Regional Health Authority and has been writing to Members of the Legislative Assembly as chair of the province’s Health Regions’ bargaining steering committee.
“It is ethically unacceptable for a public officer like Ms. Babiuk to be making statements based on patent untruths. I understand that in a negotiation process each side will interpret the issues to their advantage, but the statements from Ms. Babiuk and in the Health Regions’ advertising go far beyond interpretation.”
“We are calling on Mr. Mar to show some leadership and put a stop to the misinformation the Health Regions are foisting on the public and MLAs. He should insist they demonstrate honesty and accountability in dealing with the nurses negotiations.”
In her March 21 letter to MLAs, Ms. Babiuk wrote: “Employer proposals are not aimed at forcing nurses to work more.” But, as Heather Smith points out in her letter to Mar and Isley, the Health Region proposals would have exactly that effect. The Regions, for example, want to increase full-time work from 19 to 20 shifts in a four week period.
“What could be clearer about making nurses “work more” than increasing the number of shifts?” Heather Smith points out.
The Employers also claim they are attempting to increase the number of nurses employed full-time, however they have NO proposals that would directly do this, and in fact want to make a number of changes that would allow them to work part-time nurses more and would give them financial incentives not to create more full-time positions.
The UNA letter draws attention to misrepresentation in all six key points of Ms. Babiuk’s correspondence to MLAs.
“This is not a case of one or even two errors,” said Heather Smith. “When every statement is misleading, it must be intentional. We believe that it is unacceptable for a senior health official to mislead our elected representatives in this fashion.”
The Health Region's massive advertising campaign, newspaper ads, radio and TV commercials, are based on the same misinformation and are also highly misleading.
“We’ve had a total of less than 20 hours of bargaining talks for a new agreement,” Heather Smith notes. “The Regions have proposed over a hundred rollbacks, many of which we have not even touched on yet in bargaining. Now they are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on misleading advertising. We think it’s an incredible waste of public health dollars. They should be putting more energy into honest negotiations and less money into misleading public relations,” she says.
Attachment: Letter to Gary Mar, MLA, Minister orf Health and Wellness
30 –
For More Information: Heather Smith, RN & President of UNA (780) 425-1025
Letter to Gary Mar, Minister of Health and Wellness
March 25, 2003 Sent by Fax and Mail
Mr. Gary Mar
Minister of Health and Wellness
Legislative Assembly, Edmonton, Alberta
Mr. Ernie Isley
Chair, Board of Directors
Lakeland Regional Health Authority
Dear Sirs:
Regrettably, I must ask that you intervene in the affairs of the Regional Health Authorities and insist that Ms. Pearl Babiuk, CEO of Lakeland Health Region be relieved of her duties. I do not make this request lightly, but it is clear that Ms. Babiuk is intentionally misleading the citizens of Alberta, and in particular, the elected Members of the Legislative Assembly.
It is ethically unacceptable for a public officer such as Ms. Babiuk to make statements based on patent untruths. I understand that in a negotiation process each side will interpret the issues to their advantage, but the statements from Ms. Babiuk and in the Health Regions’ advertising go far beyond interpretation.
Specifically, as an example, I refer to Ms. Babiuk’s letter to all MLAs, dated March 21, 2003. Ms. Babiuk purports to clarify the Health Regions’ proposals in the ongoing negotiations with United Nurses of Alberta. Instead, her letter misleads the MLAs with several statements that can be clearly shown to be false. It is not the case that there are one or two mistakes here, each of the statements she makes are untrue or are highly misleading. I draw your attention to the six points she makes in her letter:
“1. Employer proposals are not aimed at forcing nurses to work more.”
In fact this is exactly what the Employers are proposing. In negotiations the Health Regions want to require full-time nurses to work 20 shifts in a four-week period rather than the current 19 shifts. Ms. Babiuk made reference to this in an earlier letter to MLAs and it remains part of the Regions’ proposal.
The Regions also are proposing to make it possible to force part-time nurses to work extra shifts without paying a premium. As it stands now, part-time nurses can agree to work extra shifts at the regular salary, but Employers must pay the premium if they order the nurse in for extra work.
The Employers want to continue just-in-time staffing patterns and cut the requirement to pay the premium if they order nurses in to work extra shifts. Clearly this would be a strong incentive for them to force nurses to work more.
“2. Employers want to create more full-time jobs. However, complex scheduling provisions - such as the need for full-time nurses to work 40% day shifts and have a certain number of weekends off - mean that the more full-time positions that Employers create, the more part-time and casual work results. That’s because the current rules create gaps that only part-time and casual can fill.”
Health care must be provided 24 hours a day, but a significant portion of patient care activities take place during the day shifts. Many industries also work around the clock with shift schedules of full-time Employees, but in our Health Regions, fewer than one third of the Registered nurses are working full-time. The Regions have intentionally underemployed nurses for the past decade in order to have a readily available workforce they can call in for “just-in-time” staffing.
The Employer does not have a single proposal to increase the number of full-time Employees, and in the past, they have adamantly refused to agree to include any such provision in the agreement. Moreover, Employers are making many proposals that would make part-time nurses even less expensive to employ and they would have a strong incentive to increase part-time, not full-time work.
During negotiations, the Health Regions brought in their own scheduling experts to explain the issues that Employers have with the scheduling provisions. These experts all agreed that the scheduling issues were in no way related to the percentage of full and part-time Employees.
“3. Employers want to be able to post full-time evening and night jobs. Nurses would be free to apply for them or not.”
The current collective agreement already permits a nurse to work permanent evenings or permanent night shifts, if the nurse asks to do so. The Employer proposals are clear - they want the right to assign nurses to permanent evenings or permanent nights - not just the right to post such positions or the ability to allow nurses who want these shifts to have them. We clarified this at the bargaining table and the Employer admitted that indeed they want the right to assign these shifts, not just post them.
“4. Employers want to have the flexibility to offer new graduate nurses, nurses from outside a Region full-time jobs and experienced nurses already here full-time jobs. These aren’t either/or propositions.”
The Employer has been very clear in the advertising that it IS an either/or proposition. The Employer wants to offer vacancies to external candidates rather than internal candidates. Current staff would be ineligible for those jobs. It’s that simple. Like almost every collective agreement in Canada, and consistent with sound business practices of most employers, the UNA collective agreement provides current staff the first chance at jobs they are qualified for.
In addition, in the last round of negotiations UNA negotiated a special provision because we believe we must attract new graduate nurses to stay in the province. The agreement permits Health Regions to offer special one-year full-time positions to new graduate nurses, without any posting at all, while also ensuring current Employees have access to job opportunities. Only one Region has taken advantage of this provision.
“5. Employers want to pay overtime for real overtime. Real overtime is when a nurse has worked more than 7.75 hours in a regular shift or more than an average of 36.81 hours in a week.”
The Regional Health Authorities are proposing that unlike all their other professionals, nurses should no longer have designated days of rest, scheduled consecutive days off each week. Making this change
would mean that a part-time nurse could be required to work six consecutive shifts, have a single day off, work another six consecutive shifts, have a single day off, then be required to work another six consecutive shifts, with no overtime. If Employees do not get two consecutive days off, it is real overtime. Removing designated days of rest would allow Employers to hide overtime.
“6. It should be noted that part-time nurses in Alberta receive the same benefit package that full-time nurses do. Arguments that employers create part-time jobs because they’re cheaper simply aren’t true. In fact, it costs the health care system more to employ two half time nurses than it does for one full-time.”
Part-time nurses do not receive the same benefit package that full-time nurses do. Life insurance, short-term disability, and long term disability are all based on a nurse’s regular schedule. The coverage part-time nurses receive falls far below that of full-time nurses. In addition, a part-time nurse who works additional shifts does so without any additional benefits. And of course the Regional Health Authorities are proposing that the Employer could require part-time nurses to work additional shifts right up to the full-time level, all without benefits.
To be clear, part-time nurses do have some benefits that are equivalent to full-time. Alberta Health Care Premiums, and dental benefits, for example, are the same. But a good portion of the benefit package is NOT equivalent.
The Regional Health Authorities are also proposing that part-time nurses with regularly scheduled hours of less than 14 hours per week would receive no benefits at all.
We invite you to see the evidence
For each of these six statements we can provide documentation that substantiates the truth in these issues. We would be happy to provide you with a copy of our collective agreement and benefit plans to demonstrate the facts. As well, the Provincial Health Authorities of Alberta has brought a professional court reporter to the negotiations table, and we would be willing to provide you with a copy of the transcript which shows that several of the statements made by Ms. Babiuk are blatantly false.
It is clear that Ms. Babiuk has misled MLAs about what the Regional Health Authority is actually seeking. We believe that such conduct is completely unacceptable, and that you must intervene.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Yours truly,
Heather Smith, RN
President, United Nurses of Alberta
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