Bargaining Update; Thursday, Feb. 17, 2005

CALGARY — The AUPE Bargaining Committee representing General Support Service employees of the Calgary Health Region is recommending that members accept a tentative agreement reached by the parties with the assistance of a provincially appointed mediator.

Members of the AUPE Local 095 Bargaining Committee met Feb. 15 and 16 in Calgary to finalize terms of the tentative agreement.

“ After reviewing the agreement, the Bargaining Team unanimously accepted the tentative agreement and will recommend that the members of the local vote to ratify the agreement,” said AUPE Staff Negotiator Malcolm McNaughton, who led the union Bargaining Committee.

If AUPE members and the employer ratify the agreement, it will be the second region-wide Receiving Agreement negotiated for AUPE General Support Service (GSS) members since the government of Alberta passed legislation in the spring of 2003 that restructured labour relations in Alberta’s health regions.

GSS members in the Capital Health region will also soon be voting on a region-wide Receiving Agreement reached through mediation on Feb. 10, 2005.

Under the Labour Relations (Regional Health Authorities Restructuring) Amendment Act, still widely known as Bill 27, the Calgary Health Region and AUPE had to consolidate 10 separate collective agreements into a single collective agreement for approximately 4,800 GSS employees of the Calgary Health Region.

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

It is hoped that ballots in the mail-in ratification vote will be mailed to members by March 3, 2005, McNaughton said. Members would be required to return their ballots to AUPE by April 7, 2005.

Key points in the receiving Agreement recommended for acceptance by the Bargaining Committee include:

• Major improvements in layoff and recall language at all Calgary Health Region worksites.
  
• Improvements in contract language pertaining to shift differential pay and weekend differential pay so that all GSS employees will receive the same rate of $1.75 per hour.
  
• Improvements in contract language pertaining to overtime so that all GSS employees will receive the same rate for overtime worked.
  
• Improvements in contract language pertaining to seniority to establish a definition of “service” based on the date of hire.

All the collective agreements that are being merged into the Receiving Agreement were set to expire on March 31, 2005.
McNaughton said notice to bargain for these agreements was filed Jan. 31. “As a result, we expect to start bargaining for a new region-wide collective agreement as soon as the ink is dry on the Receiving Agreement.”

“ If there are any areas of dissatisfaction with the Receiving Agreement, we hope to deal with them in this next round of bargaining,” McNaughton said.