_More than two years later, AHS General Support Services employees finally have a deal_
By Mariam Ibrahim, Communications Staff
More than 23,000 General Support Services members are finally free from contract limbo after an independent arbitrator awarded the Alberta Health Services employees a new collective agreement in July that includes retroactive wage increases.
Phyllis Smith awarded the three-year deal, retroactive to April 1, 2014, after more than two years of contentious negotiations. The process was a hard, long road for members anxiously awaiting a new contract.
The contract includes a two-per-cent wage increase in both the first and second years, along with a one-per-cent increase in the third year. Smith also awarded members an increase in their flex health spending account, to $750.
Because the deal is retroactive, Alberta Health Services must provide back pay at the awarded rate for all employees covered by the award.
The road to the new collective agreement was long and arduous, involving two rounds of mediation, two complaints to the Alberta Labour Relations Board and, finally, the binding arbitration hearing that produced the contract awarded in July.
But it didn’t have to be that way.
The thousands of people who make up AHS GSS membership are a crucial component of the province’s health care system and are integral to maintaining a safe and reliable environment for Albertans accessing quality care.
They represent roughly one-quarter of Alberta’s health care workers. These are the people who fight superbugs, manage health records, prepare meals, manage finances and online networks, maintain health facilities, sterilize surgical tools, assist pharmacists and therapists, provide security and much more.
We may not always see them at work while we visit a hospital or other health facility, but their presence ensures we can access the care we need, when we need it. In short: without them the system would come to a grinding halt.
AUPE President Guy Smith repeatedly called on Alberta Health Services throughout the process to come back to the bargaining table in good faith with a fair proposal for the hardworking front-line workers who make up the AHS GSS membership.
“The 23,000 people who make up this bargaining unit were growing increasingly frustrated as they waited for more than two years for news about their contract. It should never have come to this,” Smith said.
“We should have been able to come to an agreement at the bargaining table. Instead we saw the employer use every tactic in the book to delay negotiations, forcing the process into arbitration.”
While Arbitrator Smith’s report didn’t accept all of AUPE’s proposals, the award provides GSS employees with a fairer wage increase than had been put forward by AHS.
The award was the product of four days of arbitration hearings held at the Alberta Labour Relations Board in February 2016. Both sides presented hours of testimony, including more than 2,000 pages of evidence from AUPE, during hearings that sometimes lasted late into the night.
The two years before those hearings were punctuated by an abrupt and intentionally unjust approach to the bargaining process by the employer.'
Just days before the two sides were scheduled to continue mediated talks in January 2015, AHS removed its wage proposal, taking an offer of three per cent over three years – still not acceptable in the eyes of the union – off the table and replacing it with a proposal that saw no wage increases at all.
It seemed to be the very definition of bad faith bargaining, and the union responded with a complaint to the Labour Relations Board – the second filed by AUPE during the bargaining process.
“The removal of AHS’ initial wage offer just as we were preparing to head into mediation showed how unwilling the employer was to try to reach a deal that was fair to GSS workers,” said AUPE vice-president Karen Weiers. “It’s fundamentally unjust for AHS management to try to download cost-cutting onto the front line workers who do so much for this province.”
Because of inflation and Alberta’s high cost of living, the employer’s regressive proposal of no wage increases – thankfully rejected by the independent arbitrator – would have meant a reduction in real wages for these crucial employees, the majority of whom are women.
“Alberta Health Services’ own internal surveys show a weakening employee morale, and these kinds of tactics will do nothing to change that,” said President Smith. “Ensuring quality health care in the province means attracting and retaining dedicated employees, but that requires fair treatment from AHS and a recognition of the vital work GSS members do within the system.”
Because of the lengthy delays and stalling tactics from the employer, workers will soon find themselves back in the collective bargaining process, since the three-year awarded contract is set to expire April 1, 2017.
Bargaining conferences are scheduled for this fall before the parties get back to the negotiating table next year.
“It’s my sincere hope that AHS learns some lessons from the drawn-out, contentious collective bargaining process we just went through,” Smith said. “Workers deserve a collective bargaining process without undue delays and AUPE is prepared to negotiate a fair deal at the table.”
And with Alberta’s new Bill 4 extending the legal right to strike to the majority of AUPE membership, it’s hoped employers will be more willing to come to an agreement at the bargaining table rather than let negotiations reach impasse.
With AHS GSS members now finally under a new contract – and with a new labour relations framework in Alberta that recognizes the legal right to strike – it’s hoped other stalled negotiations will get a needed push forward.
President Smith noted that roughly 13,000 members working in Auxiliary Nursing Care for AHS are still awaiting a new deal after their contract expired in March 2015. The employer seemed to adopt a similar approach to bargaining with those employees as well, a process characterized by delay after negotiations broke down last year.
But during mediated talks earlier this year the union and employer signed off on several articles within the collective agreement. Negotiations over wages and other monetary issues are set to take place in hopes a new agreement for AHS ANC employees is reached soon.