B.C. health unions push HEABC to honour April 1 wage hike

Employers controlled by Campbell Liberal government try to pull a fast one

Vancouver (3 May 2006) - The ink is barely dry on contracts for nearly 100,000 health care workers in British Columbia, but already many of the government-controlled health employers are trying to rewrite language affecting what is supposed to be a pay increase retroactive to April 1.

As a result negotiators for B.C.’s four biggest health care unions are planning to meet this week with officials from the Health Employers Association of B.C. in an effort to resolve the issue.

Members of the British Columbia Government and Service Employees' Union (BCGEU/NUPGE) who are covered by the health care facilities contract — the first of four major settlements ratified — have noticed that the April 1 pay increase is not properly reflected on their most recent paycheque.

Contract language covering the implementation of negotiated wage increases for health care members of BCGEU, the Hospital Employees’ Union (HEU), the B.C. Nurses’ Union (BCNU) and Health Sciences Association of B.C. (HSABC/NUPGE) — and more than a dozen other unions — are identical. It says that a wage increase is to be paid effective April 1.

However, the province is trying to claim, through its health employers, that the increase doesn’t take effect until the first pay period after that date.

Health care unions are joining together to push HEABC to live up to the provisions agreed to at the bargaining table and pay up.

BCGEU president George Heyman says one of the issues that formed an important backdrop to the negotiations was the need to rebuild trust between employees and the provincial government of Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell.

“Withholding a negotiated pay increase— or forcing the unions to take the issue to arbitration — will not help build a more constructive relationship,” Heyman says. NUPGE