Alberta Health Services (AHS) and general support services staff represented by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) will have more pad to their pockets after ratifying the tentative agreement reached last month.
Roughly 22,000 general support services staff – responsible for things like housekeeping, food services and clerical duties – will see a nine-per-cent wage increase over three years after voting to accept the deal. Of the 22,000 eligible voters, more than 12,000 voted, with a “strong majority” in favour of the agreement.
“It’s a good decision. I don’t think we could have done any better than that,” said Melanie Thompson, chair of general support services in chapter 4 of local 54, which represents 387 workers in the greater-St. Albert area. “For us, it’s a good contract.”
AUPE negotiator Kevin Davediuk said between 35 and 40 meetings were held throughout the bargaining process, something he said is “unheard of.”
“We fought for a group of health-care workers who had gone through a lot, like transition bargaining and all the mergers of health authorities into a really big entity,” he said. “Given the strong majority that we got back, I think members are very happy.”
He said the motive for the agreements was simple: to provide workers with a fair collective agreement.
“They didn’t want to be a pawn, like to balance a health-care budget or somebody’s spending just because they happen to be publicly funded. They just wanted what average Albertans were receiving and we think we got that for them,” Davediuk said.
The agreement is retroactive to April 1, 2011 and will provide workers with a lump-sum payment equivalent to three per cent of wages, to be paid by AHS later this year. The remaining six per cent will be spread equally over the remaining two years of the contract, which concludes March 31, 2013.
The agreement also includes increased shift and weekend premium rates, a flexible health spending account increased from $500 to $600 in January 2013 and resolution of various definitions and classification disputes.
AHS now needs to ratify the agreement.
This is the first negotiated contract between general support services employees and AHS since the provincial merger of health services in 2009.
A previous mediator’s contract was rejected by 95 per cent of general support services workers in January. Many of the workers walked off the job in mid-February, prompting the cancellation of 68 elective surgeries at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton.
Roughly 100 local general support services workers participated in the strike, although no surgeries were cancelled in local health-care facilities.
