MEDIA RELEASE: Unions File Labour Practice Complaint Against NSHA, IWK

The Health Care Bargaining Council today made a formal bargaining complaint with the Labour Board against the Nova Scotia Health Authority and the IWK.

Bargaining between the Nova Scotia Council of Health Care Unions and the NSHA and IWK has stalled because the employers are refusing to table proposals for three crucial benefits in the new collective agreement. The affected benefits are sick leave; health and life benefits plans; and pay plan maintenance (the process that evaluates whether people are properly paid for the work they do).

 “The Employers are in breach of their duty under Section 35(1) of the Trade Union Act. By refusing to table their bargaining proposals, they are failing to make every reasonable effort to conclude a collective agreement,” states the complaint.

 “This is a unique and challenging round of collective bargaining. The parties are in a new bargaining relationship that was imposed by legislation. They must draft a single collective agreement to replace five agreements containing terms that, in many instances, are distinctly different.”

The Council has informed the employers bargaining could continue once they tabled these proposals. However, the employers have refused since November to table their sick leave proposal or identify the benefits plan they intend to propose. The employers have said they will have a pay plan maintenance proposal soon.

The employers’ refusal to table those proposals has left bargaining at an impasse. In order to end the impasse and resume bargaining on the health care agreement, the Council has filed a complaint with the Labour Board. The complaint asks that the Board order the “Employers to prepare and table forthwith a comprehensive proposal for a collective agreement for the Health Care Bargaining Unit.”

We are awaiting a response to our filing from the employers.