May 23, 2012 - No. 75

Resistance and Responsibility in British Columbia's Health Care System

British Columbia
• Organized Resistance of Health Care Workers and Their Allies Is Key to Stopping the Wrecking of Public Health Care
• Background to Health Care Bargaining - Barbara Biley
• Nothing New About the "Innovation and Change" Health Care Agenda of the Liberal Government
• Ministry of Health Commitment to Seniors' Care -- A Game of Smoke and Mirrors?
• Burnaby Hospital Doctors Expose the Fraser Health Authority
• Government Employees Vote 82 Per Cent in Favour of Strike

British Columbia

Organized Resistance of Health Care Workers
and Their Allies Is Key to Stopping the
Wrecking of Public Health Care

Negotiations are currently under way between support staff at BC hospitals and seniors' residences and the Health Care Employers Association of BC (HEABC) at the Facilities Bargaining table. These workers -- cleaners, kitchen staff, laundry, groundskeepers and security -- are members of the Facilities Bargaining Association (FBA), a group of 11 unions of which the Health Employees' Union (HEU) is the largest and "lead union."

These negotiations are taking place in the context of the government's aim of privatizing BC's health care in the service of monopoly interests and all the wrecking that has entailed in the recent period. Through contracting out and privatization, all these support staff are no longer covered by a single FBA contract as they were in 2001. They are now covered by more than 100 separate contracts with large multinationals or smaller private companies. Most of these contracts expire later this year. In the fall negotiations will take place for those workers who are employed by the major private companies -- Sodexho, Aramark, Compass, Acciona, Marquise, etc.

Furthermore, as of 2009 the government has permitted privately-owned but publicly-funded seniors' residences to opt out of the HEABC which means that their workers are no longer covered by the FBA agreement and in each opted-out facility a stand-alone collective agreement has to be negotiated. In some cases the union that represented the workers when the employer was part of the HEABC remains and a new contract has to be negotiated. In others, the opting out has been accompanied by contracting out so all the workers have been laid off and the unions have to organize the new workers and bargain a "first contract" with a new employer. Many of these contracts will also be negotiated this year.

The main aim of the unions at the Facilities Bargaining table is to strengthen job security provisions in light of ongoing privatization, and to protect benefits and working conditions that currently exist. In 2004, the workers covered by the FBA contract had their wages reduced by 15 per cent by back-to-work legislation after four days of strike action. Subsequent negotiated wage increases have brought wages back up to seven per cent lower than they were in 2002, and bargaining conferences last fall determined that a wage increase would be on the agenda for 2012 negotiations. To date, no monetary proposals have been exchanged and the union committee reports that the HEABC has made it clear that they are looking for concessions on benefits, changes to contract language that will restrict workers' access to work based on seniority, and changes that would result in many grievances being dismissed on the basis of technicalities so as not to address the content of an alleged violation of the contract by the employer.

Also currently in negotiations with the HEABC are the Health Sciences Association (HSA) and the Nurses Bargaining Association. Both union associations report extremely slow progress with the employer demanding concessions and, so far, refusing to discuss monetary items. At the Nurses' table with HEABC, the unions have so far focused on workload issues and the demand that the employer replace nurses who are not at work due to illness, vacation, etc. The HSA describes the pace of negotiations with the HEABC as "glacial."

The determination of health care workers to resist the attempts of the government to eliminate their defence organizations is reflected in the fact that the membership of the HEU is greater now than it was in 2001 as a result of organizing those workers whose workplaces were privatized and lacked a union. Despite the gains made for these workers, their wages and working conditions remain considerably below those covered by the FBA contract.

Concurrent with the present contract negotiations is the push for further privatization in the form of the restructuring and "regionalization" of health care responsibilities in the six regional Health Care Authorities that administer the system. This restructuring includes "consolidating," "centralizing" and "streamlining" services such as stores and purchasing, various administrative duties, IT and clerical services. These measures extend throughout the Health Authorities and in some cases the entire province making it more lucrative for predatory monopolies to plunder the sector. They are being broadly implemented particularly in the two largest and adjacent regions -- the Fraser Health Authority and Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. Lesser but still problematic measures have been taken by the Vancouver Island Health Authority and the Interior Health Authority, including centralization of staffing and payroll.

The Fraser Health Authority recently held a competition for bids to provide transcription services. This will take the transcription of confidential patient records out of the hands of those who work for the Health Authority and hand it over to a private company to plunder for profit, resulting in the loss of about 130 public sector jobs.

Public-private-partnerships (P3s) currently include 10 entire hospitals plus expansions of certain pre-existing hospitals. The Vancouver Island Health Authority announced on April 27 a plan to build two new hospitals on the north end of Vancouver Island, which are intended to be privately built and privately operated.

It is no accident that the BC government at the behest of the monopolies is working on two fronts simultaneously:

1) An unending assault on public sector workers and their defence organizations;

2) Straightforward privatization of new and expanded facilities and the wrecking of existing public facilities and services using various reorganization measures to facilitate privatization.

The government is trying to achieve its privatization of health care by ensuring that no organized resistance of the working class and its allies exists, especially those workers directly involved in the health care sector.

For health care workers, including doctors and those health care administrators who take their responsibility to the society seriously, the issue is one of stepping up their resistance and defence of both the rights of the workers and the public health care system. Equally important is to oppose the present political arrangement where governments represent and politicize the private interests of the monopolies in opposition to the public interest. This requires taking up the fight for modern political renewal to politicize public interests, for new arrangements whereby the human and natural assets of BC and Canada are deployed for the benefit of the people of Canada and the world and not the narrow, private, anti-social and anti-national interests of the monopolies.

Background to Health Care Bargaining

- Barbara Biley -

The modern Canadian health care system in the post-World War II period established in its infancy those arrangements necessary to provide basic health care. These included publicly-funded family doctors, various types of clinics, specialists, hospitals, long-term care rehabilitation and residential care for seniors. Public health care is similar to public education, journalism serving to inform the people and the political empowerment of the polity. They form part of what defines a modern nation, in terms of how a society fulfils the needs of its members, solves problems in opposition to the traditional interference of class privilege and opens a path forward.

Those modern norms of nation-building have all come under attack from neoliberalism. Within the current conditions of privatization and attacks on health care workers, the Canadian public health care project has stalled without advancing to a stage where it could be called truly comprehensive and public. The existing glaring omissions including dental care, limited access to medications, etc. are made worse with increasing user fees, chronic underfunding and a privatized supplier network that seeks to bankrupt the system with monopoly prices for pharmaceuticals and hospital supplies.

Under the neoliberal anti-social offensive launched in the '80s, governments at both the federal and provincial levels, whether Conservative, Liberal or NDP, have been engaged in systematic wrecking of the health care system, bringing in new arrangements so as to eliminate the foundation of meeting the health care needs of the society as a matter of public right. The anti-social retrograde movement seeks to impose a health care industry defined in terms of the private needs and right of the monopolies for their profits.

In the period of expansion in the 1950s and '60s in particular, the monopolies reaped huge profits in construction, medical equipment and pharmaceuticals while health care "services" were publicly-funded and publicly-delivered. Now, under the neoliberal outlook according to which there is no such thing as society and everyone is responsible to fend for herself or himself, all of health care is being handed to the monopolies as a source of profit at the expense of patients and the workers who provide the services.

New arrangements are being created by government that politicize the private interests of the global monopolies, depoliticize the public interests of the people and destroy public assets and the nation itself.

For the past 20 years the health care system in BC has seen the introduction of these new arrangements. This began with the establishment through legislation of employers' associations, the main one being the Health Employers Association of British Columbia (HEABC). Then, through legislation the formation of associations of unions representing health care workers, arbitrarily divided into various categories:

- the Facilities Bargaining Association (11 unions representing workers in hospitals and seniors' residences, excluding registered nurses and technicians);

- the Community Social Services Bargaining Association (10 unions);

- the Community Bargaining Association (7 unions);

- the Nurses Bargaining Association (representing registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses throughout the province),

- and the Health Sciences Association.

2002 protest against Bill 29.

The next target was the longstanding health care union contract language prohibiting the contracting out of any health care work to private-for-profit corporations. In 2002, the newly elected Liberal government of Gordon Campbell enacted legislation, Bill 29, which unilaterally removed all such language from existing contracts. The government decreed outside any bargaining session that language prohibiting contracting out of health care work to private corporations could not be included in contracts between health care unions and HEABC.

The dictate of Bill 29 led immediately to the firing of 8,000 experienced BC health care workers as most hospitals and seniors' residences began contracting out food services and housekeeping to the "Big Three" global monopolies: Aramark, Sodexho and Compass.

In 2006, during the Campbell government's second term, the Liberal government embarked on a plan to close several public seniors' residences and to contract with private operators to build and operate not only new residences but many of the already existing ones.

In all cases of contracting-out to the global monopolies and in the new private seniors' residences, the wages and benefits for workers were reduced to about half of what the previously negotiated rates were within the health care collective agreements. As well, to maximize profits the private contractors hired fewer workers and reduced services with the result that hospital cleanliness and the quality of food have deteriorated significantly. Care for seniors in the new for-profit residences is also deteriorating due to both decreased wages and increased workloads for care staff.

Looking only at the situation in hospitals and seniors' residences: A consequence of the privatization has been the transformation of health care bargaining from three major province-wide contracts to literally hundreds of contracts. The main target of privatization in the public facilities has been, until recently, "support services" workers -- cleaners, kitchen staff, laundry, groundskeepers, security, members of the Facilities Bargaining Association (FBA). Every worker in facilities in the province was covered by this contract in 2001.

Nothing New About the "Innovation and Change"
Health Care Agenda of the Liberal Government

Two press releases issued by the BC Ministry of Health earlier this year reveal the government continues to deny British Columbians the right to health care. The first dated March 27, is entitled "$55M reinvested into residential care, clients benefit." It boasts of increased revenue realized from the "revised residential-care rate structure" (i.e. user fee rate increases for most individuals in residential care implemented in January 2010). The second press release dated April 4, with the title "B.C. celebrates Innovation in health care" reports on a staged event at which Health Minister Michael de Jong addressed a forum of health care students and educators on "the Province's efforts to introduce innovative new ways of delivering health care services to better meet the needs of BC Families now and in years to come." The release says Minister de Jong and Parliamentary Secretary for Innovation Dr. Moira Stilwell launched a new "interactive" health care website "thinkhealthbc.ca" to promote a "chat" about health care.

The website directs visitors to a ten-page document entitled "Innovation and Change Agenda," which says the government has divided the province into five regional Health Authorities plus a sixth one called the Provincial Health Services Authority that manages province-wide programs. It reads, "The Government of British Columbia has introduced a province-wide strategic agenda to fundamentally change the health care system -- the Innovation and Change Agenda. This transformative plan will position the health sector to better meet changing population needs and continue to deliver quality health services to British Columbians in a way that can be sustained into the future."

According to the plan, the health system needs fundamental change to meet two challenges: an aging population, and, "chronic diseases that stem from preventable factors. Physical inactivity and unhealthy eating have made BC's population more overweight and obese, which is related to rising rates of Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, cancer, arthritis and other diseases." In addition, the plan cites tobacco use, problematic alcohol, substance use, and other risk-taking behaviours as contributing to the challenges.

According to the document, "The current health system is not structured to meet the needs of these patients in the most effective way." As well, it claims that in the interests of "sustainability ... we need to invest wisely and make the most effective use of our investments by providing health services that best meet the current and future needs of our population. This means changing how we deliver health care in BC."

The "Innovation and Change" plan has four elements:

"1) providing effective health promotion, prevention and self-management to improve the health and wellness of British Columbians.

2) Meeting the majority of health needs with high quality primary and community based health care and support services.

3) Ensuring high quality hospital care services are available when needed.

4) Improving innovation, productivity and efficiency in the delivery of health services."

Hypocrisy and Duplicity

It is the height of hypocrisy and duplicity that the government with its first "element" accuses the people of making unhealthy choices while implementing one policy after another that makes it difficult or next to impossible for the most vulnerable and particularly children to eat well and have appropriate sports and recreational activities. British Columbia has the dubious distinction of having the highest rate of child poverty in the country. According to an annual report prepared by the Dieticians of Canada BC Region, the cost of nutritious food far exceeds the ability to pay for many seniors, people on disability allowance or welfare, and the families of thousands of workers employed in part-time and/or low wage jobs.

Victoria, November 1, 2009

While piously encouraging everyone, especially children, to participate in sports and physical activities, the government has cut funds to school boards to the point that art, music and physical education have been cut to the bone or eliminated and afterschool sports programs are run by teachers and other volunteers on their own time for the children whose parents can afford the extra cost.

Most of the over 300,000 public sector workers in the province have not had wage increases for at least two years, and some including over 40,000 health care workers, have actually had their wages reduced while the cost of living has increased steadily over the past several years, particularly since the economic crisis of 2008.

The crisis in the forest industry has seen the elimination of many lumber mills and pulp and paper manufacturing, particularly on the coast and Vancouver Island. The ongoing forestry crises, which even predate 2008, have devastated and impoverished rural communities. Refusal on the part of government to take any responsibility for the economic and social policies that have led to this situation or its refusal even to acknowledge the severity of the problems does not make it any less real.

Duncan, April 24, 2010 (HEU)

The three remaining "elements" of the plan are fine words and policy objectives that describe promises made many times in the past and yet remain unfulfilled, the classic listen to my words and policy objectives but ignore my deeds. Thousands of British Columbians do not have and cannot get family doctors (primary care); hospitals are understaffed and overfilled with patients; and, the only "innovation" in delivery of health care services that the BC Liberal government keeps expanding is privatization and "incentives" such as "patient-focused funding" (also known as "pay for performance") that encourages hospitals to fast-track patients through Emergency Departments and favour certain diagnostic and surgical procedures over others.

Governments at both the federal and provincial levels are quick to describe a crisis in health care, as an "unsustainable" system that amazingly can be "fixed" only by abrogating the social responsibility of government to meet the health care needs of the people, a neoliberal government that hands the entire affair over to the private sector, which recognizes the claims of only those who can pay because the aim of private health care is to make money not serve the public and guarantee the people's right to health care.

The Workers' Opposition does not agree that the situation is hopeless and that public health care is "unsustainable" and the answer is to privatize everything, let the global monopolies bleed social programs for their private interests and force individuals to fend for themselves. The Workers' Opposition says No! to the neoliberals. Public health care is the only sustainable future for a modern society. The working class, fishers, small farmers, youth and seniors of BC must discuss and develop their program for public health care rooted in an economy based on development of BC's resources and secondary manufacturing under the control of the people and not the global monopolies, an economic base capable of sustaining all our modern rights and needs and with a socially responsible government that recognizes the rights of the people and their public interest and stops paying the rich and increases investments in social programs.

Ministry of Health Commitment to Seniors' Care --
A Game of Smoke and Mirrors?

In 2008, the BC Ombudsperson, Kim Carter, aware of increasing public concern, initiated an investigation into seniors' care in the province. Carter said the investigation would have, "a specific focus on issues of access to information, access to services, quality of care, standards of care, monitoring and enforcement, and complaints processes."

In December 2009, she issued Public Report #46 entitled, "The Best of Care: Getting It Right for Seniors in British Columbia (Part 1)." This report to the Legislative Assembly made a number of recommendations, some of which were accepted by the government and some not. In February 2012, she issued Part 2 of the report with 200 pages in two volumes. Volume 1 deals with Home and Community Care, Home Support and Assisted Living. Volume 2 deals with Residential Care. Altogether, Part 2 includes 143 findings and 176 recommendations.

Rally at BC Nurses' Union Convention, Vancouver, February 27, 2008, demands increased funding and support for nurses and patients.

In future issues, TML will review the Ombudsperson's Report, which found systemic problems including lack of information for seniors and families and inconsistency or total lack of policy on key issues at the level of both the Ministry of Health and the Health Authorities.

As a small example, the report deals with the issue of direct care hours per resident in residential care. Nurses and care aides provide direct nursing care as well as assistance with bathing, dressing, eating, toileting, etc. Direct care does not include the work-time of other workers including cleaners, maintenance, kitchen staff, activity aides, etc.

In her report, the Ombudsperson states that when the Ministry of Health announced a new residential care rate structure (effective January 2010), which resulted in higher user fees for most seniors, it was asserted that all the extra revenue generated would be reinvested in residential care services to improve the care provided to seniors. She quotes the Minister addressing the legislative assembly on October 19, 2001: "Every dollar raised will go back towards providing increased staffing and increased care" in residential care facilities.

Following that assertion, she reports the Ministry required the Health Authorities to submit estimates of the actual revenues and spending by March 15, 2010 and to account for how they would spend the new money over the period from 2009/10 to 2012/13. The Ministry provided a figure of 3.36 hours of direct care (3.00 of nursing and 0.36 of allied care) as a "guide for health authorities to aspire to." In spite of this directive and the Ministry's public assurances that all additional revenue would be directed to improving care, she reports, "None of the health authorities' plans, with the exception of Northern Health's, showed how the new revenue would be spent on increasing the average number of daily direct care hours provided per resident."

In fact, aside from Northern Health, all the Health Authorities submitted plans that did not include reaching the 3.36 hour allied care target. Instead, by 2012/13 Fraser Health Authority was aiming for approximately 2.89, Interior Health Authority 3.35, Vancouver Coastal Health Authority 2.95, and Vancouver Island Health Authority 3.18. Only the Northern Health Authority intended to meet the target and actually provide 3.57 hours of direct care by 2012/2013. Nevertheless all the plans were approved.

Instead of accounting for this failure to do what had been publicly promised, the Ministry of Health issued a news release on March 27, 2012 entitled "$55M reinvested into residential care, clients benefit." The $55 million referred to in the release includes "$45 million in increased revenue from fees charged to seniors in care plus $9.7 million in one-time funding to health authorities in 2011-12 for improvements to infrastructure at contracted residential facilities across British Columbia."

Contracted residential facilities are those not owned and operated by the Health Authority but owned and operated by either private-non-profit agencies or private-for-profit operators. Instead of the remaining $45 million going to direct patient care, the Ministry reports in a "year-one analysis" that these funds went to five categories, including non-capital equipment, recruitment and retention, specialized services and supports, education and clinical leadership and evidence based tools, and increased nursing and allied health care. In total, of the $45.463 million in increased fees from residents in all facilities, $34.119 million was paid out to contracted facilities. Of the $26.752 million (58.8 per cent of the increased revenue) invested in direct patient care, $23.802 million went to contracted facilities. No further breakdown is available to determine what portion went to private-non-profits and what portion to private-for-profits; however, the available information makes it clear that the Ministry of Health is in the business of directing health care dollars, both those collected from residents and those from the provincial treasury, to the private operators.

Regarding accountability, such as the Minister's assertion that "Every dollar raised [from higher user fees] will go back towards providing increased staffing and increased care" in residential care facilities yet faced with quite a different reality, the Ministry of Health (MOH) in its "Year One Analyses: Report Summary" turns a blind eye to the inconsistencies and concludes that "Health Authority plans, reporting and investments and implementation in 2010/2011 are consistent with MOH policy direction." It also boasts, "There was a high level of health authority compliance with plans, submissions and reporting requirements for the Residential Care Client Rate Revenue Reinvestment."

Burnaby Hospital Doctors Expose
the Fraser Health Authority

Doctors decry wrecking of their hospital and harmful consequences for staff and patients

The objective result, if not the sole intent, of the new arrangements in health care in BC is to replace standardization, coherence and teamwork with confusion and incoherence. It is as if the hospital team was an orchestra, each individual player with their part to play, all having rehearsed together, all directed by the conductor, suddenly facing a situation in which different sections follow different conductors and each conductor has a different score.

The Fraser Health Authority (FHA), which serves 1.6 million people, is the largest of the five regional health authorities that were created in 2001 to replace the previously existing 52 local health councils. Many of the new schemes being planned for the province are "test-driven" in the FHA. Amongst others is reorganization dubbed "Regional Program Management" that was introduced in 2009/2010.

One of the hospitals in the Fraser Health Authority is Burnaby Hospital where rates of C. difficile infection have been extremely high since the introduction of "Regional Program Management." On January 9 of this year Dr. Shane Kirby, General Pathologist at Burnaby Hospital and Chair of the hospital's Infection Control Committee along with the heads of the hospital's departments of Internal Medicine, Acute Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Hospitalists, Surgery, Laboratory and the Infectious Disease Consultant for Burnaby Hospital and Richmond Hospital wrote to Dr. Nigel Murray, the CEO of the Fraser Health Authority regarding the "continuing issues in regards to Clostridium difficile associated diarrhea (CDAD) management impacting Burnaby Hospital."

In their letter, after providing a detailed breakdown of the incidence and associated fatalities and other consequences for patients over the two-year period from 2009 to mid-2011, they list several reasons for the situation including: an aged infrastructure, hospital overcrowding and a susceptible elderly patient population, lack of coordinated medical management, inadequacy of maintenance and cleaning, lack of an infection control practitioner, problems with nursing staffing and with "administrative organization, emphasis or support for excellence in infection control management."

The doctors point out that "under medical management and infection control measures, there is a significant gap in both local and regional administrative support and resources in Burnaby Hospital and the Fraser Health Authority. This is a problem that can be rapidly corrected, should the Executive Decision be made to do so."

They go on to say, "Part of this problem relates to changes resulting from implementation of 'Regional Program Management' which eliminated the positions of local Medical Directors and replaced them with non-clinician administrative Site Directors as a 'cost-saving' measure."

"The local Medical Director," they say, "was typically an experienced physician with intimate knowledge of both local medical staff and local facility issues and represented the mechanism by which local hospital medical issues may be resolved."

The responsibility of the local Medical Director, they state, has fallen to the Site Director. The letter makes "note of the fact that our local Site Director has been absent for all of the Burnaby Hospital Infection Control Committee meetings of 2011, including the emergency meetings convened to manage the unprecedented CDAD outbreaks and resulting unit closures in the latter half of the year."

The doctors go on to state, "Indeed, we are informed that technically the local Infection Control Committee no longer exists under Program Management as, under this system, it has no formal integration or reporting structure within the Fraser Health Authority. As a result, the Committee has been reduced to a role of documenting problems, with no mechanism to report or address such issues to any authority."

The doctors elaborate examples of the "lack of coordinated or organized administrative management of infection control in this Health Authority at either the local or regional level" including the fact that the Fraser Health Authority relies on the Regional Medical Director of Infection Control to manage on a part time 0.7 FTE basis, a health care operation roughly the size of Belgium.

The specific request at Burnaby Hospital for enhanced cleaning of high CDAD rate medical units, made at the behest of the Infection Control Committee, to manage the latest outbreak in November 2011 still had not been implemented over a month later.

The temporary one-year funding from local administration for the unit educational role of "C. difficile Infection (CDI) Champion" has been allowed to lapse, despite the current environment.

The doctors point out, among other things, that:

- Those individuals who have been in the role of "C. difficile Infection (CDI) Champion" have indicated that they find the position both frustrating and possibly ineffectual, given the time constraints and degree of nursing understaffing on the medical nursing units.

- Proposals are currently underway to close the microbiology laboratory at Burnaby Hospital, under the auspices of Regional Laboratory Consolidation, despite the lack of evidence that such actions will reduce costs or maintain quality of care.

- The Burnaby Hospital Pathologists participate in the local infection Control Committee as well as accept on-call responsibility for infection control management at this facility despite the fact that they are:

- not remunerated for this service.

- not allocated time to manage this service.

- not contractually obligated to perform this service.

- The Burnaby Hospital Pathologists have made record in the minutes of the Infection Control Committee, and reiterate that their participation in these services will immediately end upon decision to close the microbiology laboratory at Burnaby Hospital.

- To their knowledge, no contingency plans are currently in place to maintain on-call continuity of care for infection control management, should this come to pass.

The doctors conclude saying, "We would characterize current CDAD infection control management at Burnaby Hospital, at best, as a serious hazard to the patient population served by the Fraser Health Authority and describe the coordination of this activity at both the local and regional levels, at best, as chaotic. Such is the degree of the CDAD problem and the ineffectual response to it, that we believe it could objectively be considered medical negligence."

They end their letter with citations from medical journals and the report of the BC Centre for Disease Control on the measures to be taken in a similar situation at Nanaimo Hospital in 2008, as well as their own recommendations and a request that "The prompt and much delayed intervention by yourself and the senior local and regional administration in addressing these significant problems is needed."

Government Employees Vote 82 Per Cent
in Favour of Strike

Over 200 public sector workers participate in the first strike vote meeting in Victoria, April 16, 2012. (BCGEU)

The first of the BC public sector unions or associations of unions to declare an impasse in bargaining is the BC Government and Service Employees Union (BCGEU) public sector bargaining unit (direct BC Government workers). Members of the bargaining unit voted 82 per cent in favour of strike action on May 15. Negotiations broke off on March 29, 2012. The public sector bargaining unit represents 25,000 workers directly employed by the government, in corrections and sheriff services, hospital and allied services, retail liquor stores and warehouse operations, social workers, child protection, probation services and systems analysts, government administrative and support services, and environmental, technical and operational services.

The union had been in negotiations since January for the renewal of a contract that expired March 31, aiming for a two-year contract with wage increases of cost-of-living plus one per cent in each year, small increases in clothing allowances, meal allowances, improvement in health and welfare benefits, payment for missed meal periods, improvements to vacancy postings, and the conversion of Temporary Market Adjustments to base pay. According to the published "cooperative gains" mandate dictated by the government for 2012 public sector bargaining, any union seeking compensation increases has to negotiate measures that would increase the employer's revenue. In these negotiations, the union made proposals that would have increased government revenues, including opening government liquor stores on Sundays and assigning traffic duties to Deputy Sheriffs. The union's proposals were ignored.

Government negotiators proposed a compensation (i.e. wages, benefit and allowance improvements) increase of 1.5 per cent as well as a list of concessions, including the elimination of employment security, the introduction of a 10-hour work day at straight time, a reduction in overtime rates, reduced eligibility for Medical Services Plan (MSP) premiums and extended health for part-time workers, and reduced sick leave benefits. As well, the government is demanding an end to four current memoranda of understanding protecting job security in the event of downsizing and privatization, and to all temporary market adjustments.

In calling for the strike vote the union pointed out that two years with no wage increase has actually meant a wage reduction of five per cent. The intransigence of the government is such that their "offer" was withdrawn April 16.

A May 15 press release issued by the union quotes BCGEU president Darryl Walker: "We're very happy our members have given us a strong strike mandate to take back to the bargaining table on May 23 in Vancouver... If the government doesn't move on its proposals, we'll be forced to consider job action... We went to the bargaining table with fair and reasonable proposals. Our members haven't had a general pay increase in three years. Inflation has reduced their spending power by more than 5 per cent ... The government wanted concessions. It also presented a wage and benefit offer well below inflation and far less than six to 20 per cent pay raises the government gave some of its executive and ministerial assistants recently."

The BCGEU has a membership of about 55,000. Besides the 25,000 BCGEU members who are directly employed by the government, many are employed in health care and are covered by the Facilities Bargaining Association contract if they work in hospitals or seniors' residences, or the Community Social Services Bargaining Association contract (group homes, drug and alcohol programs, transition houses, etc.) or the Community Bargaining Association contract (home-based services to seniors and community-based mental health and addictions services, etc.). Negotiations are underway between the Health Employers Association of BC and these three associations.

BCGEU also represents members employed by local governments, highway maintenance, post-secondary institutions, BC crown corporations, hotels, theatres, credit unions, BC Housing Management, retail outlets, casinos, labs and call centres. New contracts will be negotiated in some of these sectors in 2012.

Negotiations for direct government employees resume May 23.

Counting of strike vote ballots for BCGEU members in the public service bargaining unit, Burnaby, May 15, 2012. (BCGEU)

Read The Marxist-Leninist Daily
Website:  www.cpcml.ca   Email:  editor@cpcml.ca