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Health Bargaining Conference
December 5, 2007 - 12:35pm MST |
he two-day conference leading up to negotiations in 2008 for close to 30,000 front-line health employees began at 9 a.m. at Edmonton’s Mayfield Inn with greetings from AUPE President Doug Knight, who urged participants “to face these employers with one strong front.”
“The stars are aligning and everybody’s going to be at the table at pretty much the same time,” Knight said. “I don’t have to tell you that you need more money.”
In addition, said Knight, many other important workplace issues will have to be addressed in bargaining with public, private and not-for-profit health care employers, including all Alberta health regions.
Negotiations are expected to get under way this spring.
In 2005 and 2006, AUPE negotiators worked hard to bring numerous health sector contracts onto the same bargaining cycle as the union’s large Auxiliary Nursing Care (ANC) and General Support Service (GSS) contracts with Alberta health regions.
Today’s conference marks the beginning of the work of hammering out details of members’ bargaining objectives and overall negotiating priorities, said AUPE Staff Negotiator Jim Petrie, who is acting as chair of the meetings.
“With many contracts on the same cycle, we hope we will have more bargaining clout, which, combined with the recruitment and retention pressure on employers caused by Alberta’s continuing economic boom, will put us in a position to significantly improve our members’ agreements,” Petrie said.
AUPE Health Sector members will be looking for pay increases that keep up with inflation, compensation for soaring fuel and heating costs and recognition of the extremely high cost of living and working in some Alberta communities, he added.
In addition, AUPE will work hard to see that workers in similar jobs receive similar compensation regardless of their employer, and that AUPE’s new agreements meet or exceed all other recently negotiated collective agreements in the health care sector.
Employers in this sector also face challenges, principally the need to be able to recruit and retain quality employees in the face of strong competition from other sectors of a booming economy.
Conference participants began to set out their priorities at the first conference session this morning. Panel discussions and planning for specific activities such as communications with members and economic analysis will continue throughout the day and tomorrow.
The conference is scheduled to adjourn at 2:45 p.m. Tuesday.
For more information, contact:
Doug Knight, President, AUPE, 780-930-3301 or 780-265-6655 (cellular phone)
Jim Petrie, Union Representative, AUPE, 780-930-3335 or 780-919-4415 (cellular phone)
David Climenhaga, Communications Director, AUPE, 780-930-3311 or 780-717-2943 (cellular phone) |
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