Health Administrative Professionals Bargaining Unit Bargaining Update: Conciliation

As you are aware, talks at the bargaining table for the Administrative Professional bargaining unit broke off on January 19th, 2023. At that time, your bargaining team filed for conciliation. On March 24th, 2023, the bargaining team participated in one full day of conciliation.

The employer came to the conciliation table without making any changes to their document of January 19th, 2023, which was the document that precipitated the conciliation process. At the end of the day on Friday, your bargaining team took it upon themselves to put forward a “final settlement” document for the employer to consider through the conciliator. The bargaining team was confident that this final document, if agreed to, would be acceptable to present to you for your consideration. The bargaining team took their original conciliation document and the employer’s January 19th document and merged the two. They removed all of the employer’s concessions, agreed to any language that the employer put forward that was achieved at the Healthcare and Support tables, and moved to the employer’s financial settlement.

As it was late on a Friday afternoon, there were no government officials available to the employer to agree or disagree with the bargaining team’s offer. As of today (Tuesday, March 28th) we have still not heard back from the employer as to whether our proposal of last Friday has been accepted or not.

Whichever way the employer decides, please be advised that the bargaining team will set dates in the near future to come to you as a bargaining unit for direction.

We appreciate your patience with the negotiation process and your support and solidarity with your fellow NSGEU members within the Administrative Professionals bargaining unit.

The Health Authorities Act, passed by the provincial government in 2014, requires all Administrative Professionals employed at Nova Scotia Health (NSH) and IWK to bargain together in a Council of Administrative Professionals bargaining unit. Under the four Council constitutions, one union appoints the chief negotiator for each Council. CUPE appoints the Chief Negotiator for the Administrative Professionals Council while NSGEU has the majority of bargaining committee members. You can view the Council Constitutions here.)

As always, reach out to any member of your Bargaining Committee with any questions or concerns.

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