12 Terrace Review — Wednesday, October 15, 1986

Terrace’s nurses express concern

TERRACE Local
nurses staged a two-hour
sit down work stoppage
at Mills Memorial
Hospital last week to
make their concerns
known over the state of
negotiations relating to
their union contract.

B.C. nurses have been
working for approx-
imately 19. months
without a contract and
the present state of
negotiations have left
local professionals with a
pessimistic view. ‘‘Let’s
face it, we’re upset,”’
said Ursula Althaus,
B.C. Nurses Union
(BCNU) steward in Ter-
race, .
At the time the sit
down was staged in Ter-
race, the Health Labor
Relations Association
had offered nurses in the
province a four-year
contract and a seven per-
cent increase with no
retroactive pay covering
the time professionals
have worked without a
contract settlement.

A one percent increase
would go into effect in
March 1986, a 1.5 per-
cent increase Nov. 1986,
a two percent raise in
April 1987 and a 2.5 per-
cent hike in April of
1988,

At the work sit-down,
which took place in the
cafeteria at Mills
Memorial Hospital on
Thursday, Oct. 9 from
9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.,
Althaus said the nurses’
concerns ‘“‘have nothing
to do with the
employers’’ at the
hospital. The conflict is
being waged between the
Health Labor Relations
Association and the B.C.
Nurses Union bargaining
committee. The work

Director )

Mitis Memorial Hospital Ex-
ecutive Director Norman
Carellus speaks to nurses
assembled in the cafeteria.

Discussions

Local nurses tlstened atten-
tively and voiced their opi-
nions openly during the
two-hour discussion period
at Mills Memorlal Hospital.

stoppage at Mills
Memorial ‘‘seems the
only way to get people to
listen to us,’’ Althaus
said,

The most recent con-
tract offer ‘‘still leaves us
way behind’ salaries in
other provinces, Althaus
explained. We’re eighth
in the country as it
stands in terms of wages
and B.C. doesn’t train
enough nurses to supply
the province’s needs, she
added.

B.C. currently de-
pends on 53.9 percent of
imported personnel to
fill staffing needs in the
province. As of August
1986, we had 467 job
vacancies in B.C. which
is a 91 percent increase
from the same time last
year, Althaus said.

Norman Carelius, ex-
ecutive director at Mills
Memorial Hospital at-
tended the meeting and
addressed the assembled
nurses. Carelius said he
could ¢mpathize with the
nurses’ concerns. I know
where you are coming
from but I am not cer-
tain this is the best way
to get things done, he
said. .

If work stoppages are
planned, Carelius. said,
hospital administration
should have 72 hours
notice. As it was, he only
received notification a
few hours prior to the
planned event via a radio
news report.

Carelius said he
suspected that the work
stoppage was illegal as
an industrial inquiry
commissioner was book-
ed in negotiations with
HLRA and BCNU repre-
sentatives. The commis-
sioner was appointed by
government officials to

get contract talks settled.

I think the nurses took
this action to make a
public statement. They
are frustrated; in making
their public statement
they conducted them-
selves very professional-
ly, I don’t think patient
care was compromised,
Carelius said.

There are approxi-
mately 81 nurses on staff
at Mills Memorial

Hospital. About 20
nurses attended the
meeting while others
stayed on to provide
essential services for pa-
tients. Some nurses were
on the floor while others
had worked the night
shift and were at home.
Althaus noted, they were
here in spirit, if not in
body. |

Nurses only provided
essential services such as

emergency care, giving
out medications and pro-
viding help in surgeries.
Work such as making
beds, providing patients
with ice water or baths,
was excluded.

Althaus said nurses in
Vancouver refused to
work overtime last week
and eight surgeries had
to be cancelled, Althaus
said there is less patient
care in B.C. hospitals

BCNU stewards

Terrace nurses Ursula Althaus (left) and Pamela Pilling are two of the local B.C, nurses
union stewards.

due to the nursing short-
age.

She added that Ter-
race nurses staged the
work stoppage because
they were upset at the
slowness of progress on
contract negotiations.
Althaus said as far as she
knew, nurses at Mills
Memorial Hospital were
the only group who had
made a public statement
by only providing essen-
tial services. I think it
shows the frustration of
the nurses coming out,
she noted. .
ee a ee

Latest
development

TERRACE — An agree-
ment proposed by
mediator Vince Ready to
end the lengthy labor
dispute between the B.C.
Nurses Union (BCNU)
and the Health Labor
Relations Association
(HLRA) has been re-
ceived by the BCNU
bargaining committee
with weary resignation.
Marie Cousins, bar-
gaining representative
for the Terrace local of
the BCNU, was at the
table in Vancouver when
the mediator’s report
was handed down. “It
gave us some heartburn,
but it’s palatable. We
may be able to live with
it,’” she said. Cousins
declined to comment on
details of the contract
proposal, revealing only
that the wage component
provides an increase of
12.2 percent over three
years; a leaked report to
broadcast media, she
said, had incorrectly
given the contract term
as four years. Details of
the contract will not be
available until after the
BCNU general member-
ship votes on ratification
of the offer Nov. 6,
Cousins said. She added
that the HLRA represen-
tatives will vote,on it
this week, and she specu-
lated that if they reject it
the negotiations will
return to the previous
deadlocked state. .
Cousins also specu-
lated that a recent refusal
by nurses at Vancouver
General Hospital to ac-
cept overtime, resulting
in the cancellation of
several surgical pro-
cedures, got the stalled
contract talks moving.
‘‘After that, things
began to happen,’’ she
said. ‘‘They (the HLRA)
are starting to under-
stand that there are staff
shortages, that when
nurses won’t work over-
time beds get closed and
surgery gets delayed.”’
She concluded by ex-
pressing the hope that
both the BCNU member-
ship and the HLRA prin-
cipals accept the
mediator’s proposal.
A