2010: News Archive

HSAs bargaining team for CML Healthcare employees has reached a tentative agreement on a new contract providing significant gains. The union represents approximately 200 CML members on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland. The unions board of directors is recommending acceptance of the agreement. Wage increasesThe contract commences January 1, 2011, and expires December 31, 2015. The contract contains significant...

This week is National Medicare Week and a time to celebrate a defining feature of Canada. And this year the timing could not be more critical. Promoters of for-profit, privatized health care are on the offensive. Key figures in the federal government have made calls to dismantle national Medicare and end federal health transfers to the provinces. We are increasingly...

After eight months of bargaining for a new collective agreement, the Health Employers Association of BC (HEABC) last week finished tabling proposals amounting to significant concessions for the provinces health science professionals collective agreement. Chief Negotiator for the Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA) Maureen Headley said the package tabled is an insult to HSA and other union members covered...

The 2011 Canadian Labour Congress winter school, one of Canadas best labour schools, is scheduled for Harrison Hot Springs, in January and February 2011. Registration is now open. The CLC Winter School offers a wide variety of week-long, quality labour-oriented courses. To support HSAs ability to represent HSA members effectively and to help build a stronger union, members and/or stewards...

Are you concerned about the BC government's introduction of hospital user fees? Worried about the state of Home and Community Care for seniors and disabilities? Troubled by the growth of for-profit clinics and their legal attack on Medicare?Federal Liberal Health Critic Ujjal Dosanjh has organized a Special Town Hall meeting on the future of Canadian Health Care to in Vancouver...

The Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC and the Early Childhood Educators of BC is seeking participation in a survey on an Integrated System of Early Care and Learning in BC. The Emerging Plan for an Integrated System of Early Care and Learning in BC responds to the growing role ministries of education are playing in the early years...

BC Health Coalition Action Alert: Dear Friend of Medicare, This week, take a moment to call your MLA and tell them to scrap BCs user fee scheme for hospital care. During the Weeks of Action on Home and Community care, public health care supporters are meeting with decision-makers in dozens of BC ridings to demand a stop to hospital user...

Penticton Herald (Daily) Editor's note: October 24-30 was officially designated as Respiratory Therapy Week. Kevin Abney, a member of the respiratory therapy department at Penticton Regional Hospital, presents this first-hand look at his career choice. - - - - - During Respiratory Therapy Week, I found myself looking back at where it all started for me and how a few...

Tomorrow night, please join fellow health science professionals in a celebration of the life of Kully Sekhon. Kully was a highly respected Victoria-area social worker who helped thousands of people during the course of her career in acute, residential, and community care. When Kullys life was cut short by cancer last fall, her colleagues came together to propose an education...

The unions bargaining on behalf of 15,000 community social services workers will be meeting November 4 with the employer to begin discussions on essential services. 'Essential services' is the labour relations term to describe which services must be maintained during a strike or lockout by both employees and employers. Typically, services that are vital to protecting the health and safety...