HSA President Cindy Stewart has written to Premier Gordon Campbell calling on the government to apply the same factors and considerations that led to a 15 per cent wage increase for MLAs to the governments preparations for setting a wage mandate for other public sector workers, including the health care and community social services workers represented by HSA.
Preparations for bargaining for a new Health Services and Support Community Collective Agreement will begin this month.
All chapters where HSA members are covered by this collective agreement will hold meetings before November 4, 2005 to set priorities for bargaining in 2006. Please contact your chief steward for information about your chapters bargaining proposal meeting.
With the Heath Services and Support Community contract set to expire March 31, 2006, planning is underway to prepare bargaining priorities to present at the bargaining table.
HSA stewards will be setting chapter meetings to be held by November 4, 2005 to discuss and develop bargaining proposals. All HSA members covered by the Health Services and Support Community collective agreement are urged to attend these chapter meetings. Your negotiating team needs your input.
Last night, teachers across the province voted overwhelmingly to take a stand against Bill 12, the Liberal act aimed at ending the limited job action undertaken by the B.C. Teachers Federation to put pressure on government to negotiate a collective agreement.
The legislation, which is still being debated in the Legislature, rolls over the current collective agreement to June 30, 2006. By then, teachers will have been working four-and-a-half years under imposed terms and conditions of employment.
Front-line providers not allowed to tell
The gag order on front-line health care workers at St. Pauls Hospital is not an isolated case, says Health Sciences Association President Cindy Stewart.
-Health care providers are afraid to speak out about the deteriorating conditions in the health care system. Conditions for patients are getting worse, and the health care professionals are under a gag order. They cant tell the public whats really going on, or they will lose their jobs," Stewart said.
A bargaining hotline for HSA members to listen by phone to updates on bargaining progress in the Paramedical Professional Bargaining Association (health sciences), Nurses Bargaining Association (nurses), Community Bargaining Association (community health) and Union Bargaining Association (community social ser
