By Grant Warkentin
More than 98 per cent of BC’s nurses have voted in favour of going on strike.
“This vote is a defining moment,” said BC Nurses’ Union President Adriane Gear in a statement. “Nurses across British Columbia are demanding the respect, safety and fair contract they deserve.”
The strike vote concluded yesterday, and comes after six months of bargaining. Formal negotiations broke down on April 20.
The bargaining committee says it’s focused on issues “from crushing workloads to unsafe staffing levels, workplace violence and occupational health and safety concerns” and looking at “resolving systemic risks which undermine nurses’ ability to provide the care they are qualified to provide.”
The top three issues
Gear said the union is looking for a contract that helps retain existing nurses while attracting new ones to fill vacancies across the province. Nurse-to-patient ratios need to be reduced, she says, and the issue is one of the union’s biggest points of contention as BC continues dealing with a shortage of nurses.
Wages are another big concern, with wages for nurses in Alberta set this year to outpace nurse wages in BC, despite this province being a more expensive place to live. The BC Government Employees Union recently secured a 12 per cent increase over four years, and BC nurses are seeking something similar.
Benefits have also become a flashpoint in negotiations, particularly massage therapy benefits, which have been under discussion since 2019.
In the union’s winter “Update Magazine” Gear said “restricting massage and physiotherapy… would directly increase sick time, reduce shift uptake, increase long-term disability costs and drive nurses away from the bedside.”
Nurses are facing a cap on annual massage therapy benefits enforced through arbitration, which is scheduled to be reduced in the coming years. They want the benefits covered in their contract, not decided afterwards through arbitration.
While the union is now in position to hit the picket lines, it says it hopes it won’t come to that, and hopes the strike vote will force all parties back to the bargaining table.
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