Important update on your Home Care Transfer! 

The Community Bargaining Association, led by your union, just finished negotiating an important agreement for all home support workers working at Bayshore, Greater Vancouver Community Services Society, ParaMed, St. Elizabeth and We Care in the Lower Mainland. This agreement clearly sets out the terms of the transition of home care workers back into health authorities.

We created a "Joint Working Group" to oversee the transfer process, and ultimately ensure that the complicated task of transitioning work and workers from five vendors back to the Health Authorities was as seamless as possible. This joint working group will be hard at work in the coming weeks and months working for you.

Our top priority in negotiating this agreement was clear: to maintain continuity of care for our clients, and to ensure continuity of employment for you during and after the transfer process.

You can read the full transfer agreement here, but here's what it means for you in simple terms:

• One stop shop: All employees not on an unpaid leave will receive offers of employment from either Vancouver Coastal Health or Fraser Health Authority. You will receive an offer from the Health Authority region where you work most of your hours.
• More certainty for you: All transferring employees will carry their status (regular or casual), wage increment step and hours including wage protection, seniority hours, sick leave banks, special leave banks and years of continuous service for the purpose of vacation entitlement to the Health Authority. 

The Health Authorities haven't yet figured out the timing for the transfers, but we will contact you when we have that information. As well, the vendors haven't decided whether they'll be continuing operations after the transfer as private providers. Rumours are out there, but the BCGEU has no word from the vendor employers of their plans after the transfer at this time. Again, we will communicate with you directly when we know more.

We will be hosting information sessions about transfer process to help answer any and all questions you have. As soon as those are scheduled, we will let you know.

This transition is so exciting because it means you and your union's fighting for the last twenty years paid off. Cutting out the middle man in healthcare is going to save money, it's going to improve client care and mean more simplicity and certainty for you. Team-based health care is the future we need.

Thank you for all you do. 

Download PDF of repatriation transfer agreement here

UWU/MoveUP