Support staff workers at the Westlock hospital may soon have a contract after negotiators settled on a tentative deal earlier this month.
Negotiators from Alberta Health Services and the Alberta Union of Public Employees, which represents about 100 hospital support staff workers in Westlock, reached an agreement in the early hours of March 9 for the 22,000 general support services employees across the province.
“We’re pleased a tentative agreement was reached that both sides could agree on,” said AUPE president Guy Smith in a media release dated March 13.
The union’s staff negotiator, Kevin Davediuk, said he feels the deal was a good one for workers.
“It’s exactly what we were looking for in terms of the monetary increase,” he said. “We think it’s fair and it’s in the zone of many other collective agreements in Alberta, and probably what the average will be for the next couple years for the average Albertan.”
The tentative three-year agreement, retroactive to April 1, 2011 and ending March 31, 2014, includes a wage increase of three per cent per year, shift premiums equal to those of other AHS union contracts by 2013, a $600 flexible health spending account in January 2013 and supplemental vacation equal to other union contracts with AHS.
The agreement comes after heated negotiations came to a head Feb. 16 when workers across the province, including about 60 in Westlock, walked off the job in a wildcat strike action.
At the time workers cited concerns about pay equity, shift premiums and inequality in the union’s contract compared to other contracts — issues that have been resolved in this contract.
Another chief concern was about a process called red circling. When the union’s contracts with the regional health boards were amalgamated after the health super board took over services in the province, some employees were at a pay rate higher than the amalgamated contract would allow.
They were “red circled,” which means their rate of pay would be maintained until negotiated increases to the salary range caught up to their salaries. The health board had proposed to eliminate red circling, which would effectively lower the pay rate for some members of the union.
“The people who were red circled in this agreement, we were able to maintain their over-range salaries, which is successful, and we were also able to get them lump-sum increases as well in lieu of on-the-grid increases,” Davediuk said.
AHS spokesperson Mark Evans said the board would not comment on the agreement, and suggested instead to rely on the information provided by union representatives.
“Our tentative agreement is with AUPE,” he said. “We’re leaving it with AUPE to comment on it at this point.”
The contract will not technically be ratified until union members vote on it, a process which Davediuk said will occur in the coming weeks with a count taking place April 20, less than a week before the deadline of April 25 set out by the mediator.
“It’s not ratified until both sides formally sign off on it, which we expect will occur on the day of the 25th,” he said. “Most of the times people will wait until the last day to send in letters saying they agree to the tentative agreement, making it a collective agreement.”
