As we enter the summer, unions leading negotiations for health science professionals (Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association – HSPBA), community health (Community Bargaining Association – CBA) and community social services (Community Social Services Bargaining Association – CSSBA) continue to co-ordinate efforts to speak with a louder voice to support common goals.

Along with other unions and negotiating tables, the HSPBA negotiating committee has tabled a wage proposal that seeks to deal with rising inflation. We have not yet had a substantive response on this. However, members may be aware that the BC General Employees Union, which was scheduled for an earlier start to negotiations this year, has received—and rejected—a wage offer.

BCGEU members recently voted 95 per cent in favour of going on strike to back contract demands for the direct government employees public service contract. The BCGEU is focusing its efforts over the next several weeks on negotiating essential services levels in anticipation of possible job action. B.C.’s essential services legislation requires that agreement be reached on essential services of staffing required to protect the public from immediate and serious danger, while balancing workers’ right to strike.

CUPE and other unions in the health care sector have been working on establishing agreement on essential service staffing levels since January, ensuring that CUPE is in a position to support job action in the event that bargaining breaks down at any of the health care bargaining tables.

If your bargaining committee is not able to get to a tentative agreement that they believe meets your needs, they may make a recommendation to conduct a strike vote to show the employer they have your full support for a contract that values the work you do.

HSPBA negotiations for all the member unions, conducted by professional negotiators, subject experts on labour relations issues, and members elected by their colleagues to bring front-line perspectives, are now on a scheduled pause. However, a working group will continue throughout the summer to negotiate items addressing issues of health and safety.

There are still significant health and safety issues to deal with, such as workload, fatigue, point-of-care risk assessments, access to PPE, violence prevention, and support for the new Health Care Occupational Health and Safety Society (SWITCH BC). Focused discussions on OH&S issues led by a small sub-committee have made some encouraging progress to date. The joint employer/HSPBA group met separately on seven occasions since bargaining began in March, and has reached tentative agreement in key areas. These include new language on the employers’ responsibility to address threats of violence against workers or their families, requirements for employers to consult with joint occupational health and safety committees on risks associated with musculoskeletal injuries, new language on health and safety training for supervisors, and improved language covering potentially violent or aggressive behaviour from patients, residents or clients.

There are no plans for job action for members covered by the HSPBA contract at this time. While progress at the negotiating table is slow, we remain focused on achieving movement when discussions resume after the summer pause.

In the event that you do encounter a picket line this summer, do not cross, and contact your union for direction.

A total of $3 million will soon be available for professional development of health care workers who are members of the Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA), thanks to new funding secured from the BC Ministry of Health.

The funding, which matches the total provided in 2018 and 2021, is aimed at supporting further specialization of skills in key professions and will be available to all health science professionals covered by the HSPBA collective agreement. With B.C.’s health care system now struggling with dire shortages of health science professions in many disciplines, the funding is an important part of the urgent action needed to train, recruit and retain these specialized health professionals.

The funding is to be allocated to training and upgrading skills for HSPBA members working in professions experiencing shortages, or in rural and remote locations, as well as ongoing required professional development for all HSPBA members. The funding will apply to education or training commenced between April 1, 2022 and August 31, 2023. The education or training must pertain to professional development in a health science professional discipline being practiced in the public health care system.

Eligible expenses for reimbursement include tuition fees, registration fees, cost of required books or materials, and other reasonable education-related expenses. These may also include reasonable costs of travel and accommodation if the applicant must travel or temporarily relocate to attend education or training or related clinical placement.

All health science professionals covered by the HSPBA collective agreement, which includes members of HSA, BCGEU, CUPE, PEA and HEU, are eligible to apply for funding. Application forms will be available very soon.

The HSPBA bargaining committee is engaged in focussed discussions with the employer through most of June. The discussions are being led by subgroups of the committee negotiating matters related to managing union leave disputes and expedited arbitration procedures.

Negotiations continue, and progress is being made, but more slowly than hoped for at the outset. To date we have had high level discussions on wages and monetary proposals, including issues related to leaves, classifications and recruitment/retention. We hope to make as much progress on this as possible before negotiations pause for a summer break.

The committee continues to work hard to achieve the goals set by health science professionals at last fall’s bargaining proposal conference: agreements on action for recruitment, retention, respect, recognition of the responsibility held by health science professional members of the health care team, and supporting resilience in our physical and mental well being.

FAQs

The HSPBA’s lead union has posted a series of FAQs based on questions about how the bargaining process works, and what happens if job action becomes necessary. The full list is posted here. Below are a number of the most common questions:

Our current contract expired in March. What happens now?

While the contracts covering CUPE members in community health expired on March 31, 2022, the terms of these agreements remain in force until new contracts are negotiated and voted on by all union members. That means your pay and benefits remain unchanged for the time being.

Who is negotiating my new contract?

The Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA) collective agreement is being negotiated by a bargaining committee comprised of professional negotiators employed by the union, subject experts on specialized labour relations matters, and ordinary CUPE members elected by their peers to ensure member concerns are addressed at the bargaining table and in the new agreement.

When might we go on strike?

Negotiations for the contracts covering CUPE members began in March 2022 and are still in the early stages. Talks with the employers will likely continue for the next few months. If no progress is made by the fall, and bargaining is at a stalemate, CUPE may consider taking a strike vote then.

What if another union goes on strike in the next few weeks?

If you see a picket line at your workplace, do not cross it. If another union plans to go on strike, they will communicate through the BC Federation of Labour with other unions who may have members affected by the strike picket line.

What would a strike or job action look like?

We take job action when withdrawing our services is the only power left to us to achieve our bargaining demands, and before taking any sort of job action, we must take a strike vote.

Job action can take many forms. It could start with the refusal to perform specific duties and escalate to an all-out withdrawal of everything but essential services. A common form of job action is “work to rule”. This is where you refuse to do any duties that are not specifically part of your job description, like certain paperwork, administrative duties, or portering. A ban on overtime is a similar form of job action. These types of job action place pressure on the employer while keeping members at work. Rotating job action is where members withdraw their services for a short period of time, usually one day. An example of rotating job action is to withdraw services in one department for one day, and then have the members return to work the next day while another department withdraws their services. This type of action minimizes financial loss to CUPE members while putting pressure on the employer.

Maintaining care for patients and clients remains a top priority, and essential levels of service, which are negotiated with the employer, must, by law, be maintained.

What are essential services? How will I know if I’m considered essential?

Essential service levels are currently being negotiated between the union and the employer. No job action can be taken until such time as the final levels are agreed to by the BC Labour Board.

In the event of job action, the union will take over responsibility for scheduling the work needed to achieve essential services, and in order to be eligible for these essential service shifts, CUPE members must perform picket duty. This can take a number of forms as there are a lot of jobs that need to be done during job action. CUPE will work with the steward and job action team at your workplace to ensure that members know what to do and that essential service shifts are distributed equitably.

During the time that members attend work for essential service shifts, they are paid their regular salary by the employer. When members are performing their picket duty jobs, they are paid by the union.

The Health Science Professional Bargaining Association (HSPBA) resumed talks last week with the Health Employers’ Association of BC (HEABC). Discussions are scheduled to continue this week and next.

Negotiations are currently focussed on non-monetary matters, but during the last round of talks ending April 14, HSPBA proposed wage increases needed to make meaningful improvements to professional shortages, workload, the rising cost of living and the wage gap with other provinces. The proposal seeks a two-year agreement with a wage increase of 5 per cent—or COLA (cost of living adjustment), whichever is greater—in each of the two years.

HSPBA has also proposed a number of other measures that would bring greater equality to job classifications across different health science professions in B.C. and greater comparability to pay in other provinces, improve on call and call-backs, improve overtime pay and shift premiums, provide more funding for professional development, improve vacation and holiday leave, paid and unpaid pandemic leave, and provide a bank of paid time for gender-affirming surgeries.

We expect HEABC to provide a response to the wage proposal during this round, and we will provide an update at that time.

Meanwhile, pleasure ensure that your contact information is up to date. If your address or other information has changed, you can update it at: https://forms.office.com/r/mXDGtvAhWb.