Health Care Bargaining Update: Administrative Professionals Bargaining Unit

The Administrative Professionals Bargaining Council continues to prepare for bargaining to begin. In order to keep your bargaining unit informed, the three unions holding members within the Administrative Professionals bargaining unit (NSGEU; CUPE; and Unifor) thought it prudent to bring you up to date on where your bargaining unit stands regarding the bargaining process. The Administrative Professional bargaining team has already met, have draft proposals prepared, and are awaiting the outcome of your fellow members within the Support bargaining unit.

As the Employers were not willing to bargain with more than one bargaining unit at a time, the decision was made by the Council of Unions for the bargaining units to go in turn. The decision was for the Healthcare bargaining unit to go first; Support bargaining unit would be second; Administrative Professionals would enter the process third and the Nursing bargaining unit would finish the process.

The Healthcare bargaining unit was successful in bargaining a new collective agreement in the summer of 2021. The Support bargaining team began bargaining with the Employers in late November 2021. As of this update they have participated in eight days of bargaining, but could not come to an agreement. They then scheduled two days of conciliation which again failed to bring forward an acceptable deal. The Support bargaining team has scheduled one more day of conciliation on August 15^th.

The outcome of the last day of conciliation will have an impact on the Administrative Professional bargaining table. Should Support reach a tentative agreement, ratified by the membership, your Administrative Professional bargaining team will quickly be in a position to request the employer to provide dates to begin your round of bargaining. If a tentative agreement fails to be reached, the Administrative Professional bargaining committee may be paused again based on possible job action within the Support bargaining unit.

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

The Health Authorities Act, passed by the provincial government in 2014, requires all Administrative Professionals employed at Nova Scotia Health (NSH) 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 and 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 Lead Negotiator – Tammy Young tyoung@nsgeu.ca