Labour Board decision on Mental Health Therapists’ union has implications for UNA members

The Alberta Labour Relations Board has dismissed an application by United Nurses of Alberta seeking a declaration that any Alberta Health Services Mental Health Therapist (MHT) job posting filled by a Registered Nurse or Registered Psychiatric Nurse who is either registered or eligible to be registered with their professional association belongs in the Direct Nursing Care bargaining unit.

UNA’s application arose in response to a new AHS policy that the MHT classification, a role held by members of a number of regulated disciplines, belonged in the Paramedical, Professional and Technical bargaining unit represented by the Health Sciences Association of Alberta, even when the job holder is an RN or RPN.

The Board’s March 26 decision has implications for UNA members who may be considering applying for a position as an MHT.

Since its decision to allocate MHTs to HSAA, AHS has maintained that no RN or RPN MHT currently with UNA will be moved from UNA to HSAA. However, if an AHS employee is now the successful applicant for an MHT position that is posted with HSAA, then that employee will have to become a member of HSAA.

Collective agreements negotiated by other unions may be significantly different from UNA’s Provincial Collective Agreement in how they deal with a variety of workplace issues.

So if you are a UNA member now and accept an MHT position, thereby becoming an HSAA member, your pay, benefits and entitlements will all be based on the HSAA collective agreement.

In addition, you would lose your “bumping” rights under the UNA Provincial Collective Agreement. So in the event of layoffs at AHS, you would no longer be assured of being able to accept a UNA position.

As a consequence, UNA strongly advises members considering applying for an MHT position to carefully examine both the UNA and HSAA collective agreements. If you wish to remain a member of UNA, you should not to apply for MHT positions with AHS posted to HSAA.