Bill 1 restructures bargaining units from 50 units to 4
As protesters and police butted heads outside Nova Scotia’s legislature, inside, the hotly-contested Bill 1 was passed, signalling a monumental shift for health care labour relations — and the possibility that other provinces will follow suit.
Bill 1, otherwise known as the Health Authorities Act, passed on Oct. 3, much to the chagrin of unions. Under the new legislation, the province’s nine district health authorities will be merged into one province-wide employer (the women and children-focused IWK Health Centre is to remain a standalone entity), and the 50 bargaining units will be reduced to four. Essentially, the legislation merges bargaining units, and one will be responsible for negotiating for all health care employees of that particular faction — nursing, health care, clerical or service staff. As well, all strikes will be banned until 2015, with any impasses to be handled within 45 days each by a mediator and then, barring an agreement, an arbitrator.
The move was intended to streamline the labyrinthine collective bargaining process, a belaboured feat in the province, according to the government, as well as a cost-cutting measure.
"In a province with less than one million people, 10 (health care) employers is a lot," said Roland King, Nova Scotia’s executive director of labour relations, pointing to the complexity of the system. "There is no rationalization for which union represents which class of worker. For example, we have two unions that represent nurses — even under one employer. It’s a little bizarre when you look at the labour relations."
Up until this point, the province’s some-odd 24,000 health care staffers were represented by the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union, the Nova Scotia Nurses’ Union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees and Unifor.
Because all four unions represent the same occupations, said King, citing practical nurses, the problem crops up during negotiations, as wage parity remains fundamental to health care agreements — meaning one collective agreement would depend on the outcome of a contract negotiated by another bargaining unit and so on. The result is a tedious round of negotiations.
"Given our complex structure, the experience here in Nova Scotia has not been positive with respect to collective bargaining. They take literally years to resolve 50 collective agreements," King said. "We’ve had experiences where collective agreements have been negotiated and ratified after they’ve already expired — that’s because of the complex nature and the fact that it takes so many bargaining processes to settle all of those employee groups."
But the restructuring could have serious implications for unions, which fear volatility and claw backs to bargaining rights.
"It is a monstrous bill attacking unions and, through the restructuring of health care, encroaching their freedom of association and the right to fair and free collective bargaining," said Lana Payne, Unifor’s Atlantic director from the front lines of the protest outside the legislature.
Of particular concern for unions was the potential carving up of membership. The NSGEU, which represents almost 12,000 employees and has the most members, opted for run-off votes, where individual members that perform the same jobs would vote for any one union to represent them. The remaining three unions are pursuing a bargaining council, where each member stays in their respective unions while one union does the negotiating, thereby having one agreement covering all the employees performing the same job.
Bill 1 is yet another stop on the Liberal government’s anti-union path, Payne added, pointing to previous back-to-work legislation and the scaling back of health care employees’ right to strike.
"It is incumbent on all of us to figure out a way that we can go forward with the least amount of disruption and upheaval to the health care system possible. We don’t have a choice because the alternative is quite nasty — rearranging of members in unions that they didn’t initially become a part of — that’s a road we don’t want to go down. We want to make sure people’s freedom of association is protected here," she said.
Going forward, key labour players and governments will be keeping a close eye on Nova Scotia as it grapples with its new health care regime. And while centralized bargaining is nothing new in Canada, (think centralized negotiations for education in British Columbia) it could signal a shift toward legislated bargaining tables, said Robert Little, a partner at Hicks Morley in Toronto who specializes in health care labour relations.
For instance, in Ontario, more than 20 unions represent different employees in the hospital sector, with voluntary central bargaining facilitated through the Ontario Hospital Association. So, while there has been mutterings by governments to go down a similar route, Nova Scotia will serve as a litmus test for efficiency and cost-control.
"If you’re going to have a mandatory central bargaining system, then you have to do what Nova Scotia is doing. You’ve got to organize the sector, have a limited number of unions, and have one union representing each groups of workers," Little said. "You’d have to legislatively create, have a limited number of bargaining units and require them all to go through some form of bargaining process — with central arbitration if they can’t come to an agreement."
This isn’t the first time Ontario has flirted with centralized bargaining. Bill 122, introduced earlier this year, restructured bargaining for teachers, making universal issues to be bargained centrally, while leaving local issues to the specific bargaining agents. The model is currently being crash-tested during negotiations this fall.
As for constitutional and legal lawsuits put forth by the unions, Little foresees the challenges of getting hung up on the technicalities.
"The government is maintaining a collective bargaining system, it’s maintaining union representation – it is just dictating a more streamlined approach and reducing the number of bargaining units in unions," he explained.
Most of Nova Scotia’s health care collective agreements will expire on Oct. 31, with all expiring within the next six months.
