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AUPE News & Updates
For immediate release: Mar. 24, 2003
AUPE and Alberta Mental Health Board reach agreement for nurses at
Alberta Hospital Ponoka
EDMONTON – Negotiators for the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees
and the Alberta Mental Health Board reached agreement Monday on a new
tentative agreement for Registered Psychiatric Nurses and Registered
Nurses at the Alberta Hospital Ponoka.
Terms of the tentative agreements will not be made public until the
more than 200 members of AUPE Local 042 Chapter 002 have had the opportunity
to vote on the agreement.
In an important vote last Friday, this group of RPNs and RNs voted to
remain part of AUPE and to reject membership in the United Nurses of
Alberta union. UNA had applied to the Alberta Labour Relations Board
for a certification vote for RPNs and RNs at the large mental health
facility in Ponoka.
"We were very gratified by the faith shown by our members Friday
in the strength and solidarity of AUPE in the face of the raid by UNA,"
said AUPE President Dan MacLennan. "We’re delighted to be
able to bring them a tentative agreement so quickly."
"AUPE has led the way in the fight to get information on the transfer
of mental health services from the Alberta Mental Health Board to the
health regions, and to protect the entitlements of AMHB employees during
the transfer," MacLennan said. "Our members were out in force
on information pickets in Ponoka on Feb. 28 to defend the rights of
all hospital employees, including these RPNs and RNs."
If ratified by AUPE Local 042/002 members and the AMHB, the new agreement
with the AMHB will continue as the AUPE members’ collective agreements
with the David Thompson Health Region when the services provided by
the board at Alberta Hospital Ponoka are transferred to the new health
region on April 1, 2003.
AUPE represents employees of the AMHB at Alberta Hospital Ponoka, Alberta
Hospital Edmonton, facilities in Raymond and Claresholm and community
mental health clinics throughout the province.
Tentative agreements for all other AMHB employees were reached on March
14. Bargaining for the AHP nurses could not proceed, however, because
negotiations had been frozen pending the outcome of UNA’s certification
application.
The province is scheduled to transfer operation of all those facilities
to health regions on April 1.
For more information, contact:
Dan MacLennan, President, AUPE, 780-930-3301 or 780-910-8392 (cellular
phone)
Mike Boyle, Union Representative, AUPE, 780-930-3346 or 780-913-3955
(cellular phone)
David Climenhaga, Communications Director, AUPE, 780-930-3311 or 780-717-2943
(cellular phone)
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