Bargaining continues
On Nov. 19 and 20, your bargaining team met with the employer to continue negotiations. We made good progress on outstanding non-monetary items, signing off on three more articles:
- Respectful Workplace
- Professional Development
- Health and Safety
We are close to signing off on discipline provisions and a grievance procedure.
Thank you for your ongoing support. You’ve remained committed to each other throughout this process and because of that, we’ll have real protections for our physical, emotional and mental health. Moving forward we’re going to push for a process to deal with workload issues and a process for tracking and addressing violence in the workplace.
You do some of the most important work in the province, caring for Albertans. You shouldn’t have to shoulder the pressure of unbearable workloads and the threat of violence while you do it.
The Standing Committee on Health presented a report to the House of Commons about violence against workers in the health care industry. Workers like you have a “fourfold higher rate of workplace violence than any other profession,” the report says.
It provides recommendations to the federal government on how they can work with provincial governments to address some of the causes of this, including short-staffing and subpar security systems. You can read the full report here:https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/421/HESA/Reports/RP10589455/hesarp29/hesarp29-e.pdf
Bargaining is scheduled to continue Feb. 3 and 4. If you have any questions, please contact us. We want to hear from you.
GOOD SAMARITAN BARGAINING TEAM MEMBERS:
Betty Wiebe
Debbie Caplette
Diana Bigelow
Tahera Khalfan
Toni Zatorski
AUPE RESOURCE STAFF:
Jason Rattray Negotiator
j.rattray@aupe.org
Michelle Szalynski Organizer
403-634-8262 or m.szalynski@aupe.org
Celia Shea Communications
780-720-8122 or c.shea@aupe.org