The newly elected Health Science Professionals Sectoral Council met this week to begin looking at ways to address the specific concerns of the 2,700 Health Science Professionals working in BC Health Authorities. 

The Council will be meeting periodically over the next three years to look at building membership capacity and participation with a focus on ensuring concerns of HSP's are heard at all levels of our Union.

At this meeting, the following positions were elected:

Binny Sivia, Local 404 – Sectoral Council Chairperson
Cayce Laviolette, Local 403 – Vice Chairperson
Nicole Lockie, Local 405 - Recording Secretary
Andrea McLeod, Local 407 – Alternate Recording Secretary

The other council members are:

Stephen Morgan, Local 402
Jacqueline Grieve, Local 408
Paula Dyson, Local 409
Ali Moore, Local 410
Yvonne Liang, Local 411

If you have any questions about this Council or suggestions on how they can help, please email: [email protected].

Download PDF of notice here

UWU/MoveUP

Have you heard the news? Your fellow BCGEU members in the Public Service voted 94.6% in favour of striking for a fair collective agreement that includes cost-of-living-adjustments. Here’s how this affects you:
 
Members directly employed by the Government of B.C. took a strike vote to push their employer, the Public Service Agency (PSA), to improve their disappointing wage offer and come back with a fair proposal. As the vote wrapped up – before we even knew the results – their employer asked the union’s bargaining committee to return to negotiations. 
 
Just by voting, your fellow members sent a strong message to their employer. Today they amplified that message, and made it clear they’re united in their commitment to negotiate fair wages. They are now in a strong position to get a fair deal, and this is good news for you because the public service is the largest sectoral bargaining unit in the province and can set a strong precedent for other sectors like yours.
 
A win for the public service is a win for you. 
 
Am I going on strike? 
No, your bargaining unit is not going on strike. The strike vote does not apply to your bargaining unit, only to the 33,000 members in the Public Service (direct government services in Components 1, 5, 6, 12 and 20).
 
Are public service members going on strike? 
Not immediately. This will depend on their employer’s position when they return to the bargaining table. Depending on that, BCGEU public service members may have to action the strike vote. Don't worry – we will provide updates when we know more. 
 
Many of you work alongside these members, we all depend on the services they provide, so your union will tell you ahead of time if there will be any job action.
 
Make sure to keep up-to-date with updates from your bargaining committee to find out actions you can take to help them apply pressure at the bargaining table. If they’re feeling the strength of our solidarity from all sides, they cannot ignore us. 
 
In Solidarity,
 
Stephanie Smith
BCGEU President 

UWU/MoveUP

Now that bargaining talks with your employer are underway, it's more important than ever to make sure that our union has your up-to-date contact information. The situation could change rapidly, and you could miss important updates if we don't have your personal email address and phone number.

Our updated BCGEU Member Portal makes it easy for you to review and update your contact information, and it will be an important resource for you during bargaining. We're asking all Health Science Professional members to update their contact information by July 29. Will you log in to Member Portal to review and update your contact information now? 

If you don’t yet have a Member Portal account, click here to request your account, and then watch for an email with instructions on how to activate it.

Updating your contact information is essential to make sure you can have your say in key decisions through this round of bargaining. For example, should we need to take a strike vote it will be very important that our union can reach you. Additionally, when we reach a tentative agreement, we will need to be able to communicate with you about a ratification vote. 

In certain circumstances we may need to reach you by phone or text message, so we recommend providing a cell phone number to ensure you don't miss any information. If you don't have a cell phone, be sure to provide a phone number where we can reach you. 

Click here to visit the BCGEU Member Portal to review and update your contact information before July 29.
 
Once your contact information is up to date, please talk to your co-workers to make sure they update their email address and phone number in the Member Portal too. It may be necessary for us to take collective action to put pressure on the employer and for that to succeed we'll need to be able to communicate with all members in your sector.
 
In solidarity,
 
Michelle McAuley
Staff Representative, Negotiations

Download PDF of notice here

UWU/MoveUP

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

Negotiations continue, and we are making progress, but more slowly than we had 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. However, we have not received a response from the employer on our wage proposals.

The committee continues to work hard to achieve the goals set by health science professionals at the Health bargaining 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 wellbeing.
 
FAQs

Here are answers to some of the most common questions we're hearing.

Our current contract expired in March. What happens now?

While the Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA) collective agreement expired 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 our unions, subject experts on specialized labour relations matters, and HSP members elected by their peers to ensure member concerns are addressed at the bargaining table and in the new agreement.

When might Health Science Professionals go on strike? Are we taking a strike vote?

We are still actively bargaining and have not reached impasse so Health Science Professional members are not taking a strike vote at this time. 

Bargaining began in March 2022, and is 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, the Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association 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 or bargaining unit 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. Before taking any sort of job action, we must take a strike vote and we would not take a strike vote unless we had reached impasse in bargaining. 

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 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, unions will take over responsibility for scheduling the work needed to achieve essential services, and in order to be eligible for these essential service shifts, 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. We 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 their union.

Watch your email for more updates

We will continue to keep you informed as the bargaining process progresses. Please check your email frequently for updates.

In solidarity,

Your Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association

UWU/MoveUP

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

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 which would bring greater equality to job classifications across different health science professions in BC 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 will provide an update at that time.

In solidarity,
 

Your Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association

UWU/MoveUP

Health employers returned to the facilities bargaining table this week with disappointing responses to our proposals addressing the growing staffing crisis and rising levels of stress on frontline health care workers.

The Facilities Bargaining Association had proposed stronger measures to resolve workload concerns, including those arising from unfilled vacancies and inadequate baseline staffing levels.

Recognizing that high workloads, pandemic-related stress and other workplace hazards undermine the mental health of workers, we also proposed a collaborative process to identify hazards related to psychological health and safety in the workplace.

But the employer rejected those proposals and others that would improve the ability of shop stewards to represent members and resolve workplace issues.

In the face of a real crisis in our health care system, we have put forward concrete measures to tackle unmanageable workloads. We’ve clearly highlighted how these added pressures are burning out our frontline workers, putting the sustainability of our health care system at risk.

The underwhelming response on these critical issues by health employers is disappointing. We’ll continue to press employers at the bargaining table for solutions that will ease the pressure on the frontlines.

The pandemic and multiple climate emergencies demonstrated how much our communities rely on our health care system. But they have also revealed that our system is under stress with workers at their breaking point. Health employers need to face this reality.

As you continue to struggle with pandemic-related shortages, and prepare for another summer of heat domes, fires and resulting floods, health employers are providing a lukewarm response to our proposals on pandemic and emergency disaster response. Proposals that include establishing a process for the redeployment of staff.

We have scheduled bargaining dates through June and we’ll keep you updated as talks progress.

In solidarity,

Your Health Facilities Bargaining Association

UWU/MoveUP

Your health facilities bargaining team met with the Health Employers Association of BC (HEABC) again this week, but negotiations are moving slowly. 

We remain committed to reaching a deal that secures better working conditions for health care workers and a compensation package that protects wages against inflation.

Progress is slow, but the committee is working hard formalizing responses to proposals and developing strategies to move negotiations forward.

We have no update on the wage proposals that we exchanged two weeks ago. Bargaining will continue with dates scheduled until the end of May. 

We'll keep you updated as talks progress.

In solidarity,

Your Health Facilities Bargaining Association

UWU/MoveUP

The Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA) is preparing to table a wage proposal for health science professionals next week that addresses staff shortages, the rising cost of living, and closes the wage gap between B.C. and other provinces.

Meanwhile, your fellow BCGEU members in the public service have reached an impasse over wages in their negotiations with the provincial government. The Public Service Bargaining Committee announced yesterday that after nine weeks of talks it will take a break from bargaining to focus on negotiating essential services levels required to keep necessary government services running in the event of a strike or lockout, and preparing to take a strike vote to back contract demands. The break in bargaining was precipitated by the failure of the government to table a wage package that protects government workers from the skyrocketing cost of living in British Columbia.

HSPBA's bargaining committee has been in active contract negotiations with HEABC since March 28, and is scheduled to pause for a break at the end of next week. To date, the bargaining committee has made proposals addressing a number of priorities identified by members, including occupational health and safety matters related to workload, discrimination and harassment, facilitation of health sector-wide action on OHS issues, and classification proposals addressing concerns with employer-wide initiatives. 

The bargaining committee is also committed to change addressing colonial features of the collective agreement. In the current round of talks, the bargaining committee is tabling equity and inclusion initiatives as well as removing colonial language.

Unions covered by HSPBA have been actively negotiating essential services levels since January, and are watching developments at other public sector bargaining tables closely. A number of public sector agreements expired on March 31, 2022.

We will continue to work to achieve fair contracts for all workers who have been on the frontlines of protecting and serving British Columbians through the COVID-19 pandemic, and the opioid and climate catastrophes.

Important: Is your contact information up to date?

You could miss important bargaining updates unless we have your correct personal email and phone number on file.

The updated BCGEU Member Portal makes it easy to review manage your contact information and it will be an important resource for you during bargaining.

Please log into the Member Portal as soon as possible to review and update your contact info. If you don't have a Member Portal account yet, click here to request an account, and then watch for an email with instructions on how to activate it.

In solidarity,

Your Health Science Professionals Bargaining Committee

UWU/MoveUP

The HSPBA Bargaining Committee has concluded the initial round of discussions with the Health Employers Association of BC (HEABC), which began March 3. 
 
To date, the Committee has tabled language in three areas:

• Housekeeping and non-monetary language, including amendments that will address outdated and colonial language in the collective agreement;
• Occupational health and safety matters related to workload, discrimination and harassment, and facilitation of health sector-wide action on OHS issues; and 
• Classification proposals addressing concerns with employer-side initiatives.

 The union and employer sides have agreed on some important changes to address the colonization of the collective agreement. Our occupational health and safety and classification proposals are complex and under consideration by the employer caucus during a two week hiatus in negotiations. The union caucus will be focusing on developing a monetary package in light of information emerging about signs of a restrictive wage proposal from government.
 
Negotiations will resume when the Committee and HEABC return to the table on March 28. At that time we will be tabling equity and inclusion initiatives and exploring monetary discussion.
 
It's important that we have your up-to-date contact information to make sure you don't miss important updates during bargaining. Click here to update your contact information in the BCGEU Member Portal. If you don't have an account, you can sign up at https://my.bcgeu.ca/signup.
 
If you have a co-worker who is not receiving these updates, it means either that we don't have their email address or that they have unsubscribed from emails. Please encourage them to visit the Member Portal to update their contact information or subscription status.
 
 In solidarity,

Your Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA)

UWU/MoveUP