Health Administrative Professionals: Bargaining Update: Essential Services Mediation Dates Scheduled

The Labour Board has concluded yesterday that the Council of Administrative Professional Unions’ and Employers’ dispute regarding Essential Services should fall under a different section of the Act. The parties then agreed to attempt to mediate a resolution on August 21^st. If that does not resolve the matter, the Board will hold a hearing in early September and will issue a decision after that date.

As you may recall, the dispute relates to the Employers’ insistence on using Full Time Equivalents (FTEs), rather than an actual schedule when providing its essential services plan (see earlier update here).

In the meantime, legal counsel for Nova Scotia Health and the IWK today filed an application to conclude the Support Services essential services agreement and will argue that settling the Administrative Professional essential services is premature. This move by the Employers may further delay the conclusion of the Administrative Professionals’ essential services agreement if it is successful.

Legal counsel for the Unions will argue the Support Services collective agreement was concluded months ago and that group has no immediate need for an essential services agreement. Indeed, the employers have not raised the need to conclude that or any other essential services agreement in the past once collective bargaining had concluded.

The Unions will argue the parties need to focus on concluding an Administrative Professional essential services agreement now in order to conclude collective bargaining for this group as soon as possible.

The Council of Administrative Professional Unions will provide an update immediately following the August 21^st mediation session.

As per legislation passed by the provincial government in 2014 (Bill 1, the Health Authorities Act), the NSGEU, CUPE, and Unifor bargain as part of a Council of Health Administrative Professionals, and must have an essential service staffing plan in place before any job action can be taken in a workplace.

As always, if you have questions or concerns about the bargaining process or next steps, please contact a member of your bargaining committee or the NSGEU by calling 902-424-4063 (toll-free 1-877-556-7438) or emailing inquiry@nsgeu.ca.

Bargaining Committee:

Local 104 Kim Sheppard – the_piergirl@hotmail.com

Local 190 Lynette Hayward-Byrd – lynettebyrd@gmail.com

Local 423 Pamela Grace – pgrace38@gmail.com

Local 1246 Mark Smith – squidboy1@hotmail.com

Local 1246 Heather Tucker – HeatherM.Tucker@nshealth.ca

Local 1246 Bill Zebedee – zebedeensgeu@gmail.com

Local 1246 Dawn Daborn – dmsmith888@live.com

NSGEU Deputy Chief Negotiator – Tammy Young tyoung@nsgeu.ca