February 21, 2025
The three health provider unions (CUPE 5430, SEIU-West, and SGEU) met with SAHO on November 13, 2024 to discuss the pace of bargaining and the desire to move forward with negotiations on monetary issues. SAHO did not respond to our request until February 13, 2025.
At the February 13 meeting in Regina, SAHO brought forward the following proposal:
- SAHO set out that all issues designated by either party as “common”, which included monetary issues, transition issues, and non-monetary proposals, would be set out in a list.
- All other issues would be designated as individual to the specific union and would need to be concluded by a certain date, otherwise they would automatically be withdrawn.
- Common issues would then be bargained.
- As a result of the unions agreeing to this process, SAHO proposed a monetary increase of 3% for the period of April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024.
We countered with a higher wage request and for a process to continue to work on individual union proposals.
SAHO came back February 19, 2025 with a letter of understanding (LOU) that did not meet our expectations.
The health provider unions said no to this LOU. The price for this letter of understanding was way too high, and the monetary offer was way too low, for us to entertain SAHO’s offer.
The SEIU-West, SGEU, and CUPE 5430 bargaining committees hear from our members daily, and we share your frustration with the slow pace of bargaining and the lack of real acknowledgment of the crushing impact of the high cost of living on frontline health care workers.
A substantial boost in wages is not only required to recover from the negative impact of the inflation crisis, but it is also needed to address retention and recruitment challenges.
We also need to stand firm against concessions SAHO is pushing. SAHO is trying to cherry pick language from each union’s collective agreement and incorporate it into all three unions’ collective agreements to achieve standardization that is better for them and worse for our members. They want to water down protections against contracting out/contracting in; location of work; regressive changes to call-in/casual/relief language; and many other pieces.
We have begun preparations for essential services negotiations both together and as individual unions. We have reviewed over 400 classifications and are setting up processes to consult with our members to determine which health care services are essential (and could be provided by others) and which services are not essential.
To put it simply, the offer that SAHO put on the table to address our unique proposal was fools’ gold – and our members are not fools. Their proposal did not meet our members’ needs, and we return to bargaining at our individual union tables.
SGEU is bargaining February 19 to 21, 2025.
SEIU-West is bargaining March 3 to 7, 2025.
CUPE 5430 is bargaining March 25 to 27, 2025.
In solidarity,
Your CUPE 5430, SEIU-West, and SGEU bargaining committees