 |
January 23, 1998
Two Key Demands
As we move towards the next round of collective bargaining the two key messages that will be driving our demands are clear. To deliver quality health care there must be enough nurses to do the work.
To deliver quality health care nurses have to protect their own health and safety.
We need more regular full time nursing positions to share the workload and provide more consistent coverage. And we need better health and welfare provisions, like an increase in the lifetime limit of the extended healthcare plan, to provide for the needs of a predominantly middle-aged workforce.
How these demands were determined:
The process used to develop these priority messages was an extensive one:
we started by listening to working nurses: our stewards spoke to or distributed questionnaires to thousands of nurses; over 9,000 responses were returned for analysis
questions were developed, then sent to delegates at Regional Bargaining Conferences for discussion and voting
results from the regional meetings were used to compile the Provincial Bargaining Conference agenda
then delegates to the Provincial Bargaining Conference, chosen by members from throughout BC, developed the key bargaining issues.
|
Your 1998 Bargaining Team
Delegates to the Provincial Bargaining Conference elected the following bargaining team:
| Long Term Care |
Suzanne Kendall [Broadway Pentecostal Lodge]
Jan Uzick, alternate [Hawthorne Lodge] |
| Community |
Ivory Warner [President, on leave from South Central Health Unit]
Pam Piddocke [Simon Fraser Health Unit]
Barb Mitchell, alternate to serve until Ivory Warner's term as president is finished [Capital Regional District] |
Acute
(700 members or more) |
Debra McPherson [Vancouver General Hospital]
Frank Gillespie [St Paul's Hospital]
Judy Veinotte, alternate [Surrey Memorial Hospital] |
Acute
(201-700 members) |
Jean Smith [Royal Inland Hospital]
Ouida Koetsier, alternate [Penticton Regional Hospital] |
Acute
(200 or fewer members) |
Laura Dressel [Creston Valley Hospital]
Roberta Villeneuve, alternate [Powell River General Hospital] |
The new team heard the debates first hand so have a clear understanding of the issues that are most important to nurses. The bargaining team will now work with BCNU staff to develop specific language for the bargaining proposals that will be presented to the employers when official bargaining gets underway, probably in early March.
The Bargaining Climate
Obviously, all of our demands will not be met. We will be facing a very difficult set of negotiations because:
the government is saying there cannot be an increase in the bill to the taxpayer
BC continues to struggle with the health budget because of decreased transfer payments from the federal government
doctors are also negotiating with the government for increased funding so there will be competition for the money budgeted for health care
our employers will be determined to keep costs down by trying to replace us with cheaper workers, increasing our casual and part time numbers and chipping away at our benefits and sick leave.
|
How members can work toward our bargaining goals
It is clear that nurses have reached the point where they will not stand for further barriers to the delivery of quality care. Nurses continue to be overworked and undervalued, but we are saying it is time to put a halt to this mis-treatment. It will now be up to each and every BCNU member to decide how far they are willing to go to achieve our bargaining goals. We need to pull together at our work sites to reinforce the demands that our bargaining team is putting forward at the table on our behalf.
"Our bargaining team can reach our goals only with the support of nurses everywhere in the province, working together as one united and mutually respecting group. We'll be counting on nurses to use their excellent lobbying skills and brilliant strategies to achieve quality care for our patients/residents/clients and equity and fairness for ourselves." -- BCNU President Ivory Warner, chair of the BCNU Bargaining Committee.
|
 |
|
