Bargaining Update: Friday, Feb. 11, 2005

EDMONTON — The AUPE Bargaining Committee representing General Support Service employees of the Capital Health Region have reviewed a settlement recommendation report by a provincially appointed mediator and are recommending acceptance of the report by members.

Members of AUPE’s Local 054 Bargaining Team met Feb. 10 at union headquarters in Edmonton to review the recommended terms of settlement issued the same day by Mediator Michael Necula.

“After reviewing the recommendations, the Bargaining team unanimously accepted the report and will recommend that the members of the local vote to ratify the settlement,” said AUPE Union Representative Greg Maruca, who led the Bargaining Committee.

If the members and the employer ratify the agreement, this will be the first region-wide Receiving Agreement for AUPE regional health authority members since the government of Alberta passed legislation in the spring of 2003 that restructured labour relations in Alberta’s health regions.

Under the Labour Relations (Regional Health Authorities Restructuring) Amendment Act, still widely known as Bill 27, the two sides had to consolidate 11 agreements between the Capital Health Region and several unions into a single region-wide “receiving agreement” for all GSS employers.

“While we were disappointed in some areas, we felt given the restrictions imposed by Bill 27 on the bargaining process that this represented the best collective agreement that can be achieved at this time,” Maruca said.

Maruca said the Local 054 Council will meet at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 12, to review the Bargaining Committee’s recommendation.

AUPE President Dan MacLennan will attend that meeting, which will take place in First Presbyterian Church, 10025 – 105th Street, Edmonton.

Maruca said it is then hoped that mail-in ratification ballots will be mailed to members by Friday, Feb. 18.

Members would be required to return their ballots to AUPE no later than March 18, he added.

Key points of the Receiving Agreement recommended by Necula include:

• Layoff and recall language that improves on current conditions at all Capital health region worksites.
  
• “Green circling” provisions that will ensure employees moved to lower job classifications will continue to receive negotiated wage increases for two years and then have their pay frozen at the higher rate.
  
• Improvements in language pertaining to vacation allotments for many full-time employees.

Under the terms of the proposed settlement, a process has been put in place for AUPE and the Capital Health Region to negotiate job classifications so that they will be identical at all worksites in the region.

Once the receiving Agreement has been ratified, Maruca said, AUPE will almost immediately begin a new round of negotiations for an improved collective agreement.

All the collective agreements being merged into the Receiving Agreement were set to expire on March 31, 2005, and so if it is ratified the new Receiving Agreement will expire on the same date, he explained.

Notice to bargain for the expired agreements was filed on Jan. 31 with negotiations expected to begin once a region-wide agreement is in place.

“We hope to deal with some of the areas of dissatisfaction with the Receiving Agreement in this next round of bargaining,” Maruca said.

Last fall, the Local 054 Council elected Jim Shelley from the Royal Alexandra Hospital, Daniel Nobis from the Sturgeon Hospital, Colin Carmichael from Leduc, Alecia Hinton from the Glenrose and Tonya Malo from the University of Alberta Hospital to be the bargaining committee for this next round of negotiations.

The new committee met on Jan. 7 to develop a survey form that will be distributed to members for this upcoming round of bargaining.