In our November Bargaining update it was reported that the parties would be exchanging bargaining proposals on December 18, 2018. The exchange did take place on that date and both teams had the opportunity to ask questions and to provide additional information pertaining to their respective proposals. This allowed both the HSAS and SAHO negotiating teams to come away from the exchange with an understanding of the issues that each party would like to address in this round of bargaining. The parties agreed to meet on January 15-17, 2019 to begin the bargaining process.
Our main Collective Agreement with SAHOexpired at the end of March 2018 but remains in place until a new agreement is signed.
SAHO provided HSAS with a notice to bargain on January 29, 2018. Three days later it was announced that SAHO would be absorbed by the SHA and cease to exist as its own entity by the spring of 2019. This did not come as a big surprise, but it did cause some initial delays in the bargaining process.
We finally were able to secure a meeting for May 30, 2018 with the individuals who would be representing the Employer for this round of bargaining.
Over the past week and a half, your Negotiating Committee met with SAHO and their representatives. Subsequent to those meetings, a Memorandum of Agreement (Tentative Agreement) was reached. This morning, your Executive Council reviewed that tentative agreement and has voted to recommend acceptance of this settlement to the membership of HSAS.
An email was sent to SAHO from the HSAS Negotiating Committee on Friday, May 29, 2015. The email indicated that subsequent to the strong ‘NO’ vote count of May 27, 2015, HSAS expected SAHO to return to the bargaining table to complete an offer which would be deemed acceptable to the members of HSAS. HSAS also offered potential meeting dates in the upcoming weeks.
The forced vote ballot count was held today at the Labour Relations Board office in Regina.
Of the nearly 3600 ballots the Labour Relations Board had mailed out three weeks ago, over 2200 were returned by today’s date. That is a return rate of 63%. According to the Saskatchewan Employment Act, the vote outcome is to be determined by the majority of the ballots returned.
Wednesday, May 27th has been set as the date for the ballot count at the Labour Relations Board. HSAS will have two scrutineers present for the counting of the ballots. It is anticipated that the results of the ballot count will be complete by the end of the day on the 27th and that those results will be emailed to the HSAS membership shortly after.
Last week a number of members provided information indicating that they had not yet received their ballots from the Labour Relations Board (LRB). They also indicated that they had contacted the Labour Relations Board to inform them as well.
If you have not received your ballot from the Labour Relations Board:
1) Please call the Labour Relations Board @ 306-787-2406 to inform them that you have not received your ballot
2) Please email bargaining@hsas.ca to make HSAS aware that you have not yet received your ballot
May 20, the deadline for return of your ballots is a week away. The LRB literature indicates that any ballots received at the LRB after May 20, 2015, may not be counted. If you have not yet received your ballot, please contact the Labour Relations Board at 306-787-2406.
Thank you to all HSAS members for your support. More members have submitted questions. These questions and the answers have been posted to the Q and A – they can be accessed through the ‘Read Q and A’ button on the home page of the website.
Thank you to the many members who submitted their questions, comments and concerns over the past days. New Q and A have been added to the page of previously asked and answered questions.
Your HSAS Executive Council representatives met this afternoon. The Executive Council reviewed the events of this week – SAHO’s refusal to bargain and SAHO’s application to the Labour Relations Board to force a vote on their last offer.
In response to the many member questions/concerns received with respect to SAHO’s proposal to limit retroactive pay, please see further explanation below:
SAHO representatives, following a six week delay, requested an informal meeting with HSAS on April 9, 2015. Subsequent to that meeting, SAHO presented HSAS with a written Counter proposal on April 10, 2015.
As previously reported to you, over the past number of months, discussions with respect to bargaining between HSAS and SAHO have been both of a formal and informal nature. Formal included both teams sitting down at the table; informal included texts, emails, and conversations outside of the bargaining table.
At the conclusion of bargaining with SAHO on February 27, 2015, your Negotiating Committee reported that discussions with SAHO were to continue the following week and future dates were to be determined. As of this afternoon, informal discussions have taken place with SAHO but a future set of dates has not yet been determined.
Your Negotiating Committee met with SAHO January 29th and 30th, 2015 in Saskatoon. In response to HSAS’s counter proposal of October 8, 2014, SAHO provided HSAS with their counter proposal of January 29, 2015.
At a recent informal meeting held between HSAS and SAHO representatives, SAHO expressed interest in setting future dates for resuming negotiations with HSAS. In follow-up to that conversation, it has now been confirmed that SAHO and HSAS will meet on January 29 and 30, 2015.
Your Negotiating Committee last met with SAHO on October 7 and 8, 2014. On October 8, 2014, HSAS provided SAHO with a counter proposal to the SAHO proposal of September 26, 2014. To date, HSAS has not received a follow up counter proposal from SAHO and SAHO has not proposed new dates.
HSAS met with SAHO late Tuesday morning. HSAS requested clarification and rationale on a number of proposals. In these discussions we shared de-identified emails with SAHO to emphasize our members concerns.
HSAS met with SAHO in Regina. At that time, HSAS declared impasse in response to SAHO’s proposal of June 26 and their refusal to remove all takeaways from their proposal.
Last week SAHO contacted HSAS indicating that the reinsertion of their proposed language for 15.01(c) Field Hours (removal of the union’s ability to challenge and arbitrate an employer’s designation of a Field hours position) had been done in error and that SAHO was removing it from their proposal of June 26.
Subsequently, SAHO & HSAS agreed to meet in Saskatoon on July 22 & 23.
It has been an interesting week. We apologize for the delay in your receipt of this update, but we wanted to provide you with a comprehensive overview.
Below is a timeline of events since we last updated you on June 27, 2014.
We previously informed you that as a result of SAHO refusing to meet with us to continue negotiations, HSAS declared an impasse in our collective bargaining with SAHO as per the Saskatchewan Employment Act. The next step in that process after declaring an impasse is for the Minister of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety (the Minister) to appoint a Conciliator or Conciliation Board to mediate the dispute.
On May 16, 2014, we advised that you SAHO had cancelled our scheduled negotiating dates of May 21 and 22 due to circumstances beyond the control of their committee. During that same communication, we advised that SAHO had offered June 11 and 12 as replacement dates, which HSAS accepted.
Following our last meeting dates with SAHO on May 1 and 2, we had reported that we had offered May 12 as a date for further negotiations. We have since been informed that SAHO is unable to meet on May 12. We have offered May 21 and 22 as alternate dates and they have been accepted by SAHO. We will therefore be meeting with SAHO on May 21 and 22, in Regina.
Your Negotiating Committee met with SAHO on Thursday, May 1 and Friday, May 2 to continue negotiations. The day began with SAHO providing HSAS with a counter proposal. Your Negotiating Committee reviewed this proposal and prepared a response to present later that afternoon. We then met Friday morning where SAHO provided further counter proposals. The parties discussed these proposals, and also further discussed SAHO’s EMS Hours of Work proposal. There was progressive movement on a number of proposals on both sides. Below you will find a summary of what occurred.
Your Negotiating Committee has been engaged in mediation with SAHO since yesterday morning. The day started with each side giving their perspective to the mediator as to what has happened with negotiations to date. Following that joint conversation, each committee spent time alone with the mediator getting into more detail about our proposals.
On April 9, 2014, HSAS announced that, as a result of the disrespectful proposal put forward by SAHO, we have commenced a strike vote amongst the membership.
This morning your Negotiating Committee met with SAHO in Regina. We informed SAHO that feedback from our membership was overwhelmingly negative with respect to the SAHO proposal of March 12, 2014 and their current proposal would not be accepted by the membership. We then invited them to make an improved offer that was more reasonable and more respectful of our members. SAHO took some time to consider our request, and then informed us that they refused to provide an improved offer.
Discussions started on February 12 at 2:00 pm at SAHO’s request. When we met with SAHO in December, we had discussions about a number of SAHO proposals and HSAS proposals. The discussions with respect to the HSAS proposals were brief. SAHO did, however, acknowledge that through those discussions, HSAS had raised points which merited consideration by SAHO.
Your Negotiating Committee met with SAHO on December 10 and 11, 2013 in Regina. This has been the first meeting since we met with SAHO on October 8, 9, 10. We discussed a number of SAHO’s proposals (probationary period, New Graduate Recruitment program, personal property damage, and uniforms), and also had discussion on our proposals to SAHO (parking, selection criteria, disclosure of staffing levels, contracting out, and problems with our existing classification plan).
Your Negotiating Committee met with SAHO on October 8, 9, 10 in Saskatoon. We spent the majority of the time asking SAHO detailed questions about their proposals and having substantive discussions about them.
The parties will be setting meeting dates shortly to meet again to continue discussions.
Your Negotiating team met with the SAHO Inc. negotiating team early this afternoon for exchange of bargaining proposals. Each team is in the process of reviewing the received proposals and will be meeting tomorrow to speak to their respective proposals.
On May 1, 2013, we advised that your Negotiating Committee had been meeting with representatives from the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) to explore the possibility of negotiating a Tripartite Partnership Agreement.
In the fall of 2012, a member of upper management in one of the largest health regions communicated to our members that it was the intent to have ‘Partnership Agreements’ with all of the healthcare unions. In response to that comment, your Negotiating Committee communicated with the Ministry of Health to confirm that statement. Since that time, there have been preliminary meetings with representatives from the Ministry of Health and the Regional Health Authorities.
The HSAS Negotiating Committee met in Saskatoon on January 31 – February 1, 2013. We further discussed our proposals and worked on finalizing them. The next step is to present our proposals to the HSAS Executive Council for their approval.
Your Negotiating Committee met from December 17 – 19, 2012 in Regina.
On December 17, we met with the Employer representatives and SAHO to begin discussions on negotiating Essential Services Agreements (ESAs) with each Health Region.
The 2012 HSAS Bargaining Conference was held on September 6 and 7, 2012 with 50 members attending the 2 day conference. The bargaining conference started with Rob Cunningham of DC Strategic Management giving the attendees an environmental scan of the current Collective Bargaining environment. Members were then asked a series of questions to debrief on their understanding of the presentation. One of the questions was “What do you see as the top 3 work environment issues?”. The major themes that came out of this question were: adequate staffing, compensation, and benefits, including flexible schedules.
