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September 3, 1998
Bargaining Priorities Reaffirmed
The first action taken by your new BCNU council on September 1 was to reaffirm our bargaining priorities. Council directed the bargaining committee to proceed with our priorities of:
- workload
- pay equity
- equality
- no concessions
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Across the province, nurses have told us their top concern is workload and quality patient care. With your support, the bargaining team will be fighting to ease workload through gaining the right to call in nurses when needed, the creation of permanent vacation relief and float pools and bargaining nurse to resident ratios in long term care.
Monetary issue clarified
After thorough debate, the BCNU council also decided not to fight against the provincial public sector wage guidelines of zero, zero, and two per cent increase over the three years of the contract. Instead, we will address monetary concerns by pushing for improvements to premiums for on-call, in-charge and shift and weekend work. We will also bargain for pay equity.
We hope to win language that will see nurses automatically get a pay equity increase of 1 per cent annually until the gap between nurses and those working in male-dominated jobs is eliminated.
Equality and No Concessions
Our fight for equality and no concessions go hand in hand. We still have nurses covered by our provincial collective agreement who are working under inferior provisions. We need to correct this so our employer will no longer have the opportunity to bring every nurse down to these inferior provisions. With your support, we will stand firm against employers who want to take away gains we have won in the past.
More information at meetings
We urge you to attend the up-coming meetings on bargaining for more information on these important issues. Please watch for meeting notices.
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