Thousands of Nova Scotia health-care workers, including lab technologists, in-hospital paramedics and child psychologists, could be walking off the job soon.
The health-care bargaining unit, which is made up of members of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union, CUPE, Unifor and the Nova Scotia Nurses Union, sent a message to its members Wednesday with the intention of seeking a strike vote.
"This is a regular part of bargaining for us. It's taken us two years to get here, but we made a decision that this is where we need to go because we are moving at a snail's pace and not getting much done if anything done at the table," said NSGEU president Jason MacLean.
4 years trying to reach deal
MacLean said the bargaining unit has been trying to reach a deal with the province for four years. He said the employers— the province, the Nova Scotia Health Authority and the IWK Health Centre — are not taking bargaining seriously.
"You can't just hold people out like that and have Stephen McNeil bragging that they have this big windfall of money when you have a crisis in health care. And you have the people working in the crisis in health care trying to keep it afloat, but you're not respecting them by just giving them a deal at the table," MacLean said.
According to the bargaining unit, it would be Nova Scotia's "first ever provincewide health-care bargaining unit strike vote."
6,500 voting members
The union said details on the strike vote will be released in the coming days.
The vote will include all 6,500 health-care bargaining unit members from Yarmouth to Cape Breton.
MacLean said some of the health-care bargaining unit's concerns include health and dental benefits and a proposal that allows employers to reassign employees wherever the employer wants.
Published: March 21, 2018
Source: CBC News Nova Scotia
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/nsgeu-health-care-bargaining-unit-seeks-strike-vote-1.4586640
