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July 29, 2003
Mediator’s recommendations rejected by Negotiating Committee—Members vote September 15
The UNA Negotiating Committee rejected out of hand the recommendations for a new provincial contract that mediator Alan Beattie released July 18. The Committee said the recommendations were “outrageous and patently one-sided” and would mean huge rollbacks and losses for nurses.
All UNA members will have a chance to vote on the recommendations on September 15. The Negotiating Committee is strongly advising rejection of the recommendations.
“We need to dispel any delusion that these recommendations are acceptable to nurses in Alberta,” says President Heather Smith. “Imposing this kind of contract on nurses would drive younger nurses who are concerned about safety right out of this province, and would lead many senior nurses to move faster to retirement,” she says. “It would have a serious impact on the ability of our health system to provide good care for Albertans.”
A package of information is being mailed to every member that summarizes the recommendations and what they would mean for nurses. A summary is immediately available on the UNA website: www.una.ab.ca or on UNA*Net.
In the meantime, UNA has asked the Health Regions to re-start bargaining after the mediation effort, which in the end “was a complete waste of time.” In a letter to the Provincial Health Authorities of Alberta (PHAA represents the Health Regions) Director of Labour Relations David Harrigan made it clear nurses want to continue talks and would consider filing a formal complaint with the Labour Relations Board if PHAA refuses to set more bargaining dates.
LRB to start over with Bill 27 vote for Capital Health Region nurses
The Labour Relations Board will be sending out completely new ballots to Region 6 Capital Health Nurses because of errors it made in the original information for the Bill 27 “receiving agreement” vote. The final deadline for the new ballots will likely be sometime in September.
Voting on “receiving agreements” continues in all the other eight Regions and ballots must be in by August 7th, or in the case of Region 7 nurses, by August 15th.
The balloting information the LRB mailed to each nurse said that to look at each agreement, they could go and download it from the LRB website. But on the site, the agreement that downloads is the entire facility agreement—including ALL local conditions! It was the same full agreement for either choice.
“The information from the LRB was confusing, even misleading,” Harrigan notes. UNA had to write to the LRB and all agreed the only solution was a re-vote.
“Many Edmonton area nurses may have already gone to the trouble of voting, now they’ll have to do it again,” he said. He also reiterated that voting for a “receiving agreement” only sets the beginning point for subsequent negotiations. “We still believe the Health Regions should return to resolve all this at the main provincial bargaining table.”
New Region-wide Bargaining units won’t be set until September
The Labour Relations Board has also run into difficulties making the final determination on which nurses are in each Regional bargaining unit. The Board was supposed to release new bargaining unit certificates in July. In a June hearing UNA maintained the best solution would be to include all Registered nurses who are Health Region employees, but the LRB rejected that and set apart current nurses who are not union members. The LRB agreed that its definition of who was in and not in the union was not clear and another hearing date has been set for September 5.
Nurses who are in other unions must remain with those unions until the LRB certificates are finally set.
Nurses threatening strike?
Headline writers at the Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald went over the top this week saying nurses are threatening to strike. In fact, UNA has NOT called a strike vote. What UNA has said is that if negotiations fail to reach an agreement that improves conditions for nurses and patients, a strike is the nurses’ last resort. Somehow that was translated into “threaten”.
A Calgary Herald article said “Alberta nurses last struck province-wide in 1998”, but in fact Registered nurses have not been on a province-wide strike since 1988, over 15 years ago. The piece also said “good pay is not the issue in this strike.” The first part of that is true, nurses and the Health Region are close on salary increases, but there is NO strike. UNA has not called for a strike vote, nor initiated any type of strike process.
Driving nurses out of the profession
An article in the July 2003 issue of Canadian Health Care Management reiterates the concern that the current health care environment is driving nurses away from their chosen profession. In Revisioning the Nursing Shortage: A Call to Caring for Healing the Health-Care System, Janet Quinn, RN, PhD, suggests that the health care environment is increasingly toxic for nurses, not allowing them to care sufficiently for their patients and pushing risks levels higher and higher for nurses and patients alike. Quinn notes that traditional business models have failed to find solutions for the nursing shortage. Instead, by using the example of how we nurture other endangered species, she points out that health care managers need to create a positive, stable environment where nurses can do what
they do best: care for those in need. Quinn contends that by giving nurses an opportunity to provide better care at work, the population of nurses will grow, reducing the shortage and generally improving the state of health care across the country.
Strike at Canadian Blood Services in Calgary and Lethbridge…
Picket lines are up at Canadian Blood Services (CBS) sites in Calgary and Lethbridge, and both centres are closed. CUPE workers, who’ve been without a contract since April, 2002, collect and distribute blood and blood products in the region. Nurses working for CBS in Edmonton are UNA members but nurses at the two CBS offices are not in UNA. It is NOT the nurses in the CBS offices who are on strike.
The workers voted 95 per cent in favour of a strike, and rejected a mediator’s recommendation in late May. They want increased recognition and pay for their ever-growing responsibilities. They are waiting for the employer to come back to the bargaining table with a new offer.
The more than 80 CBS workers are mainly clinical assistants, as well as those working with donors, providing administrative and technical support and transporting blood products.
Calgary Region pulls money grab by raising parking fees
In what appears to be a deficit-fighting cash grab the Calgary Health Region has hiked Employee parking rate fees.
“The CHR is in a big deficit and they’re trying to recoup their money, and that’s one of their little cash cows— increasing our parking,” said Colette Huck, treasurer with United Nurses of Alberta Local 115, told the Calgary Herald. Huck said nurses are “upset. It’s adding a big bit of insult to injury because we’re in the middle of negotiations right now.”
“That’s a lot of money and they just take it off your paycheque, so you have no choice. It’s a payroll deduction. It’s a hardship,” she added.
Nation-wide survey of nurses delayed until September
The “Building the future” nurse occupational survey, which was supposed to go out last spring was postponed until September in order to allow for an increase in sample size. The survey has been expanded to 39,000 randomly-selected Licensed/Registered Practical Nurses, Registered Nurses and Registered Psychiatric Nurses.
Building the Future: an integrated strategy for nursing human resources in Canada is gathering the information that will help governments, educators, and employers make informed decisions on how to avoid a critical shortage in the future. The survey has been endorsed by a wide-range of nursing organizations who urge nurses to complete it.
Nurse-patient ratios coming into effect in California
The California Department of Health Services (CDHS) has released revised nurse-to-patient ratio regulations for general acute-care hospitals. The ratios will be the first of their kind in the U.S.
The ratios are being implemented in stages beginning in 2005 to enable hospitals, especially those in rural areas, to develop strategies to meet the new ratios.
The California law came into effect in 1999, after nurses launched a voter initiative and campaign to establish minimum nurse-to-patient ratios by licensed nurse classification and by hospital unit.
Only intensive and critical care, acute respiratory care, coronary care, well-baby nursery, neonatal intensive care units and ORs currently have minimum ratios. The proposed ratios cover all other areas of a hospital, including med/surg units. The proposed ratios vary from 1-to-1 for trauma patients to 1-to-6 (reduced a year later to 1-to-5) in med/surg units.
The regulations are expected to take effect Jan. 1, 2004. The draft regulations, research findings and information about the process for submitting comments are available on the CDHS Web site at www.dhs.ca.gov.
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