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In Early December 2018, Arbitrator William Kaplan publicly issued his award to establish a province-wide collective agreement for approximately 7500 acute care nurses working throughout the province for the Nova Scotia Health Authority and the IWK.
This unprecedented round of bargaining included nurse representatives from across the province, from four different health care unions, NSNU, NSGEU, CUPE, and Unifor, together at one table. Council representatives had the arduous task of combining almost two dozen collective agreements into one each for the NSHA and the IWK.
The Council is proud of the work achieved on behalf of nurses in Nova Scotia. This is one of the best collective agreements the province has ever reached for our members. In addition, the NSNU was able to maintain much of the progressive language achieved in previous rounds of bargaining, while improving some language and acquiring new language that benefits our members.
Unfortunately, we were not able to retain all existing NSNU benefits. Some language was lost during face-to-face negotiations or taken away by Arbitrator William Kaplan. Many of these changes are now in line with the Health Care Bargaining Council award which was settled last summer.
Arbitrator Kaplan’s award came after the Council of Nursing and the Employers met an impasse in bargaining which began in early September of last year.
All provisions including language changes take effect February 1, unless otherwise specified in the award. This timeframe enabled both the Employer and the Union to prepare for the changes required. During the transitional period, employers, unions and nurses continued to reference the 2011 contract.
The NSNU held an interactive webinar on December 11 to discuss the details of the agreement. For those unable to participate in the live broadcast, a video file of the webinar was uploaded to the Members Only page on the NSNU website following the session. It remains on the site, nsnu.ca. You will require your login credentials in order to watch the video.
On April 18, 2019 the NSNU will host a bargaining forum for the Board of Directors, NSNU Acute Care Nursing Council members and acute care table officers (president or alternate) in Truro at the Glengarry Hotel. Information regarding registration for the forum will be sent directly to these individuals.
On January 17, the Executive Council met to discuss this last round of negotiations, essential services language going forward, and how to improve upon bargaining for 2020. On January 18, labour relations staff from all four of the health care unions met at the NSNU to review the nursing contract so that there is clear and consistent implementation of the agreement across the system.
The new collective agreement and a compilation of NSNU’s highlights can be found at nsnu.ca/councilofnursingunions.
If you have a comment or question about the collective agreement, I encourage you to email nsnubargaining [at] nsnu.ca.
The NSNU would like to thank our NSNU negotiating team, as well as the Council representatives from NSGEU, CUPE and Unifor, on a job well done.
