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UNA suspends meetings of Provincial Collective Agreement Joint Committee

By United Nurses of Alberta September 24, 2012 15:23 (Last updated September 26, 2012 11:55)
After several months of growing evidence the Employer-UNA Joint Committee is failing to fulfill its mandate, the United Nurses of Alberta has suspended all meetings of the committee.

The Joint Committee was founded more than a decade ago to exchange information to resolve issues that emerge under the day-to-day administration of the UNA Provincial Collective Agreement. Meeting each month, the committee has functioned effectively for many years with the provincial health regions and other health sector employers.


Unfortunately, while the Joint Committee continued to provide a useful mechanism for resolving potential disputes for a time after the creation of Alberta Health Services, in the past several months actions taken by AHS have made the committee's work increasingly difficult and unproductive, said UNA President Heather Smith.

"The leaders of UNA's locals and our union's activists now need to be informed that the employer is consistently disregarding long-established understandings of the Provincial Collective Agreement and sending the message that it does not respect employees, their union or the agreement itself," Smith said.

"UNA is very disappointed that this kind of attitude has become commonplace at Joint Committee meetings and cannot allow this body to be used in a destructive way to undermine our members' Provincial Collective Agreement," Smith stated.

Accordingly, UNA has concluded the Joint Committee is not meeting its mandate and has suspended all meetings.


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