Nurses Bargaining Association reaches tentative agreement

A tentative three-year agreement has been reached between the Nurses’ Bargaining Association (NBA) and the Health Employers Association of BC (HEABC). The tentative agreement addresses key priorities and protects nurses’ ability to provide safe, quality patient care.

Bargaining update: Nurses’ Bargaining Association

Several weeks since HSA’s representatives to the Nurses’ Bargaining Association (NBA) joined the NBA bargaining team in early contract talks with the Health Employers Association of BC (HEABC) to negotiate a new collective agreement, progress continues to be made. HSA’s representatives at the bargaining table, member Nicole McIntosh, a registered psychiatric nurse at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, and staff negotiator Alyson Warner report that they continue to focus on key priorities for HSA’s 1100 registered psychiatric nurses.

Bargaining Update #4: Health Science Professionals

Negotiating teams head back into talks next week to continue bargaining for a new collective agreement for the province’s 18,000 health science professionals working in hospitals and communities around the province. The bargaining teams have been working solidly in the three weeks since the last update to members, and significant progress is being made at the table on a number of issues. Next week, the focus shifts to workload and shortages solutions, finding effective strategies for ensuring occupational health and safety, and optimizing benefit provisions 

Investing in people is investing in health care and social services, HSA tells provincial budget committee

HSA President Val Avery presented to the provincial legislature’s Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services this week, and urged government to invest wisely in the people who deliver the health care and social services British Columbians rely on. “The provincial government’s promising and ambitious new health care directions will require health human resources planning for health science professionals, and should not be limited to one or two professions, such as nursing and medicine where the greatest focus remains,” Avery told the committee.