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September 16, 1998
Bargaining goals reflect members' priorities
Workload and quality patient care far outweighed a pay increase among nurses' concerns as stated in the one-to-one canvass
In negotiations for a new Provincial Collective Agreement, your bargaining committee is emphasizing workload and quality patient care, because that was the top priority stated by nurses in the one-to-one canvass conducted last year.
More than 9,000 nurses responded to that canvass. During that process, members were interviewed personally in the workplace, and detailed answers about their bargaining priorities were compiled and presented statistically.
In every region of the province but one, the issue of workload and the need for nurse/patient ratios to reduce workload far outweighed every other concern that it is possible to resolve through collective bargaining.
For example, among all the BCNU members responding to the canvass across the province, support for measures to relieve workload ranked 50 per cent higher than a pay raise.
In acute care and long term care, the margin was even greater. The workload issue ranked 58 per cent higher than support for a pay raise.
Within each region the margin is also dramatic -- On Vancouver Island, workload ranked higher than a pay raise by 82 per cent. The margin was 47 per cent in Fraser Valley, 72 per cent in Thompson-Columbia, 113 per cent in Okanagan-Similkameen, 47 per cent in West Kootenay, 441 per cent in East Kootenay, 92 per cent in North West, 153 per cent in North East, and 11 per cent in Vancouver South. Only in Vancouver North did a pay increase rank higher than workload -- by some 33 per cent.
In establishing detailed proposals for negotiations, your bargaining committee has taken direction from the one-to-one canvass, from debates at the bargaining conferences, and from other sources of input from members and stewards. However, whenever there were differences in input received from these sources, the bargaining committee has opted to refer to the feedback process that involved the largest number of members -- the one-to-one canvass.That's why the priorities at the bargaining table for 1998 are workload and quality patient care, equalization, pay equity, LTD, car allowance and improvements in on-call, in-charge and shift premiums.
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