September 26th, 2003
A decision was handed down by the B.C. Supreme Court hearing the multi-Union challenge to the constitutionality of Bill 29. In her judgment, Madame Justice Nicole Garson dismissed the Unions' arguments and stated that Bill 29 does not infringe on the Charter of Rights. The Unions had claimed that the legislation contravened sections 2(d), 7 and 15 of the Charter.
The Unions are now preparing to appeal this decision and plan to take it to the Supreme Court of Canada if need be. Unfortunately, this will take a long time to get before this judicial body.
FBA has withdrawn their case after achieving a poly-party agreement for shared services. In this agreement, the facilities unions have obtained certain protections for their members whose work could be moved into a PHSA Corporate Services Unit covering all of the member organizations of PHSA. In particular, it will provide them with the ability to work under a single "dove-tailed" seniority list which was the main aim that they were hoping for in their application to the Board.
A hearing is scheduled for Dec. 1-3. In the meantime, a meeting of the parties was convened on September 5th with the assistance of a Labour Board mediator, Brent Mullins, to see if an out of court settlement could be reached or, at least, to narrow down the issues.
The meeting went well and there is some indication that a resolve may be reached that could protect the rights of our membership at Riverview. We are waiting for a response from the Employer to determine if we should talk further on this matter or move forward with the hearing in December.
We are preparing for a meeting with HEABC, B.C. Public Service Agency and management representatives of Riverview and Forensics that will take place on October 2 and 3. We will be acting on behalf of the Public Service Nurses' Bargaining Association and BCNU representatives will be joining us. We have had meetings with the BCNU to develop a package that we will table at the October meetings. This package will be finalized next week.
With respect to the downsizing at Riverview, we are hopeful that an orderly process for offering staff work in the new facilities will be developed through our talks on the successorship application mentioned earlier.
Having said all of this, we are now planning to set up meetings with the staff at Forensics and Riverview in October in order to present an update to the membership at these facilities and to answer questions.
As many of you are aware, we have had issue in the Community Sector regarding the PARIS system being used and the requirement for our members to be heavily involved in maintaining patient records. We sent out a notice to all of our members some time ago and we have now filed, in conjunction with the BCNU, an industry-wide workload grievance on this issue. CUPE has also filed a grievance claiming that this activity impinges on their jurisdiction.
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