Wage cap respected, but other changes made
Nova Scotia nurses have agreed to a collective agreement that continues the provincial wage cap of 1.0 per cent per year for 2009 and 2010.
“We knew going into this round of bargaining that the wage trend would be difficult to break. So, the NSNU took this round as an opportunity to make other language improvements,” claimed Nova Scotia Nurses’ Union president Janet Hazelton.
The agreement expires this year; the union will be back at the table in the fall.
Long-term care nurses also ratified a similar agreement.
Some of the improvements to which Hazelton points include the elimination of mandatory overtime on days of rest, an easier process to book vacation time in advance, a new uniform that will be exclusive to nurses and allow patients to more readily identify them, 25¢ to shift and weekend premiums, and several recruitment and retention schemes have been extended for the term of this agreement.
Hospitals will be permitted to create multi-site or multi-unit positions. This will allow nurses to have one full-time job, even if the location or the unit varies, rather than being forced to take several part-time ones outside their practice area.
Nurses make up the unionized group that has most often exceeded the provincial wage cap. In British Columbia, the province settled early with the BCNU at 3.0 per cent per year before introducing the “net-zero” mandate. In Quebec, the FIQ was able to squeeze an extra 2.0 per cent out of the province based on the requirement for nurses’ shifts to overlap to update their colleagues on patients’ conditions.
