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October 14, 1998
HEABC Believe Information is Power
And they don't want the Union to have membership data
Bargaining Committee members from the Nurses Bargaining Association have been working hard trying to bargain clauses to establish float pools, increase the number of full-time regular positions and increase the FTE of those part-time employees who want more regular hours.
We have also been working on proposals to reduce the length of the casual block and proposals to establish regular employee status for client specific nurses who have a regular schedule (current contract language assumes every client specific nurse is casual.)
All these proposals have been denied by HEABC because they say they are not cost-effective. Yet when the union asks for overtime statistics or the number of nurses on leave, or the number of times extra nurses have had to be called for workload relief, HEABC refuses to give the union the data.
Similarly, when the union asked for information about members' working hours and employee status, on computer disks or tapes, HEABC first said the information was not available in a single report, then said it would cost too much money to produce. When the union offered to pay any extraordinary costs, as per the Freedom of Information Legislation, HEABC said it was illegal for them to give us the members' Social Insurance number.
In response, the BCNU tabled the membership form which existing members signed in 1995 and 1996 and has been used to sign up new members since then. This declaration includes express permission from each member for the union to use the Social Insurance number. We also tabled a legal opinion which confirmed the new membership form gives the union permission to receive this information
BCNU Starts Freedom Of Information Cases
At the same time, we tabled a form letter which we told HEABC we would ask steward coordinators to deliver to the top hospital administrator at each worksite to launch a Freedom of Information request for this information.
We also told HEABC our lawyers had spoken to the Freedom of Information Commission and they had confirmed that the union has the right to access this information. We gave HEABC until Wednesday morning Oct. 14th. to agree a contract provision guaranteeing us this information, making it clear that failure to do so would mean our steward coordinators would launch into action. HEABC are still saying no, so we are faxing out a letter to each worksite to ask the stewards to launch Freedom of Information requests.
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