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Bargaining Update for Unifor Local 4600 members in the Healthcare Bargaining Unit
As you are likely aware, your collective agreement expired on October 31st, 2020. Unifor started preparations for bargaining shortly after, sending out our membership surveys in January and reviewing the results early in February.
The Unifor Health Care bargaining committee members then began drafting bargaining proposals. On February 12, 2021 these proposals were presented to the larger Health Care bargaining council, which includes representatives from Unifor, CUPE and NSGEU. All Unions shared their proposals and began deciding which proposals we would bring forward to the employers (NSHA and IWK). The Council has scheduled two additional meetings to finalize its proposals and strategy.
The Council began asking the employers for bargaining dates in December 2020. After several further attempts to secure bargaining dates, the employer recently confirmed these dates. The parties have agreed to exchange proposals on Thursday, April 15th, 2021. We have eight additional dates scheduled for bargaining, with the final date scheduled for Thursday, May 13th, 2021.
The Executive Council of Health Care Unions, which is comprised of the leadership of all four unions representing health care workers across the province have agreed to select Health Care Bargaining Unit as lead table in bargaining for this round. The Council of Health Care Unions does not expect this round of bargaining will be as prolonged as the previous round, as the councils now have the merged collective agreements in place.
As a result of the new Health Authorities Act passed by the provincial government in 2014, which merged the nine district health authorities into one, all four unions ( Unifor, CUPE, NSGEU & NSNU) now must bargain in four Councils: Health Care, Administrative Professionals, Support Services, and Nursing.
The Health Care Council has also begun work on negotiating essential services agreements with employer representatives from the IWK and NSHA. These agreements determine the number of employees who must remain at work in the event of a strike. The IWK essential service agreement is complete, and the negotiations for the NSHA agreement are ongoing.
We will provide an additional update once we meet with the employers in April. If you have questions or concerns about the bargaining process, please contact either Jamie Pollock – President Unifor Local 4600 at 902-578-1564 or @email OR Susan Gill – National Representative at 902-562-3857 or @email