Saskatchewan Union Of Nurses

What do the nurses want in their up coming negotiations with the provincial gov't?

1. Pay equity with their Federal counterparts.
   This could be a bit of a reach even for a willing employer. The spread is nearly $9000.00 dollars and there are 9000 nurses. Not all of them would get the full amount but a majority would as the nurses population is old enough to be mostly senior staff.
2. Just a healthy raise would probably do the trick. It could come in several forms.
3. Un-sociable shifts are a fact of nursing that goes unrewarded, unlike danger pay or isolation pay. Nurses might as well be in the far north or on the moon when they are working three 12 hours shifts on a week-end, or any time. They get peanuts for a shift differential and it should be increased by a significant amount.
4. Over time is often double time, which would probably be adequate if the regular salary was adequate.
5. A nurse who is mandated in to work is currently paid at a normal overtime rate. This is ridiculous! A mandated shift should be at least triple time, if for no other reason than to discourage the employer from failing to provide staffing in the first place.
6. They want to have a day off where they can count on the phone not ringing at 5:30 in the morning for them to come in to work. It really is awful to have to install name and number display just so you can avoid picking up a call which might result in being mandated in to work.
7. Nurses would like to be treated to a benefit package, half as good as some of the "crowns". There are those who can attend to a sick spouse for weeks and receive partial salary.
   If a nurses spouse dies, they get three days off and its back to work! If the spouse or kids are sick its too bad for them!
8. A health care plan might be nice too. Nurses have partial coverage of basic dental care and no drug plan or optical coverage. In fact nurses may have the leanest health care coverage in the entire public secter!
   More than a bit ironic.
9. Nurses would not only like to be paid to keep abreast of education in their field but would like an opportunity to do just that.
   As are teachers, who bring in speakers and organize seminars on their "paid education days".
10. For $243.00 a year, per nurse (that would be between $500-$750 per stall) for parking, nurses would like to be able to plug in a car warmer for a few weeks in the winter, so that when they finish the 12 1/2 hour shift they don't have to sit on a rock hard frozen car seat for 15 minutes while their car warms up enough to drive home.
11. When 100% of nurses in an area bring an item to the attention of their employer;
    such as how ridiculous it is for nurses to be paid to take time out from patient care to empty garbages, hand out food trays or clean toilets, when cleaning, kitchen or maintenance staff are available for those duties they would like to not have to fight tooth and nail to make their point.
12. Cost of living clause: With a 1% trigger. The cost of everything on the planet is going up daily so nurses need a cost of living clause just to keep pace with the obvious financial demands of our society (not to mention the governments own, all-too-regular-increases for everything from vehicle registration, telephone service, gas and power to taxes).
    
    
    
    Do nurses want a lot?
    
    They want a lot more than they have now, and I think they have waited long enough and work hard enough to deserve a lot more!
    
    What they actually get may depend more on how many people phone up their "Member of the Legislature" and tell them they better look after the nurses or else!

Index

Today, March 03, 1999, the Leader Post reported on the negotiations between nurses and SAHO. The article was on page C8, just below yesterdays weather.

It's a fact, the Leader Post reports yesterdays weather! Even more remarkable is the fact that they relegate the most current news of our provinces nurses to the same lonely backpage as "yesterdays weather".

I noted in this article that a new labour relations consultant is being brought in from British Columbia to help to "facilitate the negotiations for both sides.

In the interests of the nurses I have decided that I will offer my consulting services right here for free until the gov't ante's up some cash money for the nurses.

• Remember, strikes are a touchy business and early talk of a strike worries me. The gov't has a way a manipulating strikes and strikers into something that they are really not.
  
  
• SUN should plan on rotating strikes by unit only and never a total walk out. Why? Two reasons. A total walk out puts huge dollars into the hands of the gov't and the managers and it creates bad public opinion. The public already knows nurses have a 74% strike mandate, there is no need to show off about it.
  
  
• SUN should plan on inconveniencing managers with small rotating strikes.
  Managers need to be reminded that 5 of them, cannot do the work of 5 nurses, for even a few days any more than 3 nurses can do the work of 5 nurses, even for a few days. And they need to be taking that message back to upper management on a regular basis after covering for a series of rotating strikes.
  
  
• SUN should remember that there is no rush to settle. The only rush that is on is to keep the voting public informed.
  SUN should try to get some better press coverage than yesterdays weather and keep in mind that two or three months of rotating strikes dragging on and on, means really great "bad press" for this gov't. Which in turn means, a better chance of a better contract!
  
  
• SUN needs to absolutely ensure that it does not settle it's negotiations until "after" the gov't concludes it's negotiations with CUPE. It would not be fair for SUN to rush it's business in ahead of CUPE. After all CUPE is made up mainly of health support workers who not only keep the hospitals and facilities running for the nurses to work in, but who, coincidentally have some of the same issues on the bargaining table as the nurses.
  
  
• Nurses should offer a good deal of support to CUPE and their negotiation team, as those negotiations will almost certainly be precedent setting in regard to SUN negotiations.
  
  
• SUN should publicize all the little perks that the "crowns" and other sectors of employment get that nurses don't get.
  For example the most responsible of employees who don't use or abuse their sick time in other sectors get paid out at a rate of a third. (I think) So for the nurse who is nearing retirement and has 6 months or a year of unused sick time, the gov't could offer to pay out a third, which would amount to a few months pay. The alternative of course is for the gov't to treat the nurses in the traditional shabby fashion and the nurses will respond in kind and start taking those sick days off, as retirement approaches.
  
  In this scenario the gov't pays a younger nurse straight "double time" to replace that sick call. (And don't even think about criticizing a 60 year old nurse for taking a sick day when they feel really shabby even if they could manage to get through the day!)
  
  
• April 08 1999 and the nurses have given strike notice, the hospitals have been cleared of all the non-life-threatened patients, the Premier has spent the day intervening in what should be SAHO's business and the nurses have decided to go to work and continue to collect their paycheques. No doubt this will demonstrate to the gov't that two can play the "best of intentions" waiting and propaganda game. (I couldn't have planned it better on my best day!)
  
  
• What is the next move for SUN? Step up the Public Awareness Campaign; and I am sticking with small rotating strikes and pickets as the best method. Also SUN must continue to demonstrate to the gov't that the "big picture" requires greatly increased nurses salaries and benefits or Saskatchewan will be even further behind the other provinces in three years than they are now!
  
  
• Interestingly, the surgeons at the General Hospital have continued to do open heart surgery's on a daily basis and yet the media has only reported that "elective surgery's" have been cancelled. SUN definitely needs to counter this propaganda measure with the fact that surgical nurses continue to assist in surgery's which shorten the waiting lists for the public every day so far!
  As well, SUN needs to broadcast the fact that post surgical care has continued to be provided throughout the pre-strike manuvering by both sides.
  
  
• What is the next move for SUN? SUN is walking out!(April 08 1999)
  
  Yup! I guess the Premier was less effective than he wanted to be. Perhaps he has failed to recognize that the solution to the whole of the healthcare crisis is to bring the nurses wages up to speed.
  
  This provinces nurses cannot "nurse", our crippled health care system back to health without more nurses, and no more nurses will come here while our nurses salaries trail far behind those of the neighbouring provinces.
  

I will almost certainly have more sage advice for the negotiating committee soon. So stay tuned.

Index

• SUN has been making a huge mistake! They have consistantly allowed the wrong message to be sent to the government as well as the media and the public.
  
  All anyone has heard for the last several weeks were the words RAISE and $9000.00. What message would have been better?
  
  The nurses and SUN want SAHO and the Saskatchewan government to address the significant disparity between our provinces health care system and the other provinces. In particular Alberta, which not only boasts the sales tax advantage and geographical proximity, but which currently pays its nurses more than this NDP government has "legislated" for Saskatchewan nurses for each of the three years from now until 2001.
  
  This message clearly demonstrates to all (except card carrying NDP'ers perhaps?) that the nursing shortage will be increasing and more beds will be closing over the next three year period. It further demonstrates who ought to shoulder the blame!
  
  (Failure on the part of SUN to instruct its members as to the correct, appropriate and consistant message to be delivered to the media and the public may have already cost the members a great deal. If the public hears, "raise" from the nurses they will forget about the big picture if they ever knew about it in the first place and even though a raise for nurses improves the big picture the "focus" of all SUN communication should be on the big picture .)
  
  
• Perhaps at this time of confrontation there is no more important item for SUN and its members than to maintain clarity in its message to the public of Saskatchewan, the NDP government and the whole of Canada.
  
  
• Were the nurses returning to work . . . I would have this sage advice for them as follows.
  
  
• Public Awareness Campaign - Every blunder and short coming of management must find its way to the SUN office and the media! Also all methods available must be utilized to educate the public as to the ramifications of underfunding nurses as well as the whole system!
  
  
• No instance of understaffing should be allowed to go un-reported.
  
  
• Every mandated shift worked needs to be reported to the SUN office, recorded and reported to the media on an on-going basis.
  
  
• Any work situation involving a question of safety for either the patient or the staff ought to have a complete incident report filed with management, as well as reported to the SUN office.
  
  
• Any type of communication on the part of managers toward SUN members that is not 100% business like and professional, ie harassment of any kind, insistance on duties or activities outside the job description or errors in shifting or payroll ought to be pursued and / or grieved.
  
  
• How should nurses respond when asked how they "feel" about the strike and the governments actions? They should feel like any free citizen of the world, they should feel "ashamed", ashamed to be associated in any way, shape or form with this type of deception and heavy handed political self-serving manipulation on the part of our Saskatchewan Government.
  
  
• SUN must set policy concerning over-time and how much nurses will be available - keeping in mind that the less voluntary over-time the higher the numbers will be that are reported to the media for mandated work.
  
  
• Remind everyone that CUPE has not settled their contract yet and other public sector employees are on the verge of being forced to strike by "dictator style" government at this very moment!
  
  

  
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