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An award has been issued by Mediator / Arbitrator William Kaplan which concludes a collective agreement for more than 6,000 employees in the Health Care Bargaining Unit at the NSHA and the IWK Children’s hospital.
The process leading to this arbitration award began nearly two years ago when the Council of Health Care Unions began to negotiate 16 collective agreements down to one each for the IWK and NSHA.
After more than 50 negotiating sessions with employer over two years we agreed to this mediation arbitration process which began with the Health Care bargaining unit.
For Unifor members in health care the new collective agreement is in a different format with new language and there are significant changes in several articles including:
- Job Posting Language
- Seniority provisions within the Dorsey defined bargaining units
- Overtime provisions
- Stand-By and Call Back
- Vacation Scheduling
- Leaves
- Job Reclassification Procedure (Joint Evaluation)
- Job Security and travel
- Reassignment
- New language for part time and casual employees and accrual of benefits
- New definitions for temporary positions (long and Short assignments)
- Job Sharing
- Time in Lieu and Holiday Banks
There are some monetary gains within the agreement particularly in the overtime provisions and stand by and call back. All monetary gains in this new collective agreement will be effective from the date of the award (August 8, 2018) with the exception of those that were agreed to take effect at a particular date. For example, some wage increases – already agreed to as part of the mediation / arbitration vote, are retroactive to 2015 and will be seen soon.
All other language provision will not take effect until October 1, 2018. This will allow both the membership and the Employer to review and adjust to the changes. Until this date, the Unifor 4600 current collective agreement will still be in effect.
Mr. Kaplan has reserved his decision on shift and weekend premiums until August 15, 2018 thus a supplemental award will be issued on that date.
There will several town hall sessions throughout the month of September to explain all the new language and changes to members before these changes take effect on October 1, 2018.
Here is a link to the Kaplan’s final award which takes effect Oct 1, 2018
The Support Services, Administrative Professional and Nursing Bargaining units will now begin their bargaining.
As always National Representative Susan Gill and Local 4600 President Jamie Pollack are available to answer your questions.
Susan Gill @email
Jamie Pollack @email