Contract negotiations

For almost 20 years, provincial governments in BC worked deliberately to drive down wages for specialized health professionals in BC. In many cases they succeeded, leaving health professionals earning some of the lowest wages relative to their colleagues across Canada. It was a misguided attempt to control health care costs; instead, it slowly undermined the health care system even before...

A delegation from the constituent unions of the CBA met with HEABC and a representative of the Public Sector Employers’ Council Secretariat (PSEC) on November 3, 2022. It was our goal to impress upon PSEC that the CBA was unable to meet the core priorities we had established based on the monetary offer we have received. In particular we outlined...

For almost 20 years, provincial governments in BC worked deliberately to drive down wages for specialized health professionals in BC. In many cases they succeeded, leaving health professionals earning some of the lowest wages relative to their colleagues across Canada. It was a misguided attempt to control health care costs; instead, it slowly undermined the health care system even before...

HSA’s representatives on the NBA bargaining committee met today to review the priorities set by HSA RPNs. Members first identified these priorities through the membership survey that members completed in the fall of 2021, and they were discussed further by delegates to the October 202 Bargaining Proposals Conference. They will join with a representative from HEU as well as the...

Collective bargaining resumed between the nine-union Community Social Services Bargaining Association (CSSBA) and the provincial Community Social Services Employers’ Association (CSSEA) this past week to negotiate a new contract for 17,000 unionized workers in the sector. However, on Monday, talks were suspended after the latest proposal put forward by the employers’ association failed to meet the needs identified by workers...

BC’s 22,000 specialized health professionals working in hospitals and communities around the province reached a tentative agreement late Wednesday night after more than nine months of negotiations between the Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA) and Health Employers Association of BC (HEABC). Jeanne Meyers, Executive Director of Health Sciences Association of BC (HSA), is lead negotiator for the HSPBA. “We...

The CBA bargaining committee resumed negotiations with HEABC on October 19 – 21, 2022. We have made some progress and are close to resolving outstanding non-monetary matters and we’re currently working to reach an agreement on changes to hours of work in both Article 14 and 15. However, HEABC (on behalf of the Provincial government) has reiterated that their initial...

Since the resumption of negotiations at the end of September, the HSPBA Bargaining Committee has been working to advance measures to address recruitment, retention, shortage and workload issues which drive so many of the serious issues affecting the public health care system, the people who depend on it, and the professionals who keep it running. The employers remain resistant to...

After returning to the negotiations table in mid-September, talks continued over wages and compensation with a focus on making gains in the areas that members have mandated the bargaining committee to achieve in this round of bargaining. As it stands, the parties still do not agree on how to reach a tentative agreement that includes a fair and equitable compensation...

Bargaining committee members, along with the committee members from other unions, have been bargaining for the last three weeks. Discussions are now on hold while we look at scheduling new dates, and we anticipate talks will resume in late October or early November. Since our last update, the employer has continued to resist most of the non-monetary language changes that...