BC Nurses are Still Without an Executed Collective Agreement and Can Strike
BC Nurses deceived by news releases.
I heard rumors that nurses haven’t yet received retroactive pay increases announced on April 27th, 2023, in multiple news releases. BCNU acknowledged it, in this press release: “Union Issues Payment Demand Letters to Three Health Authorities”. It would make sense that retroactive pay increases would be paid as soon as an executed collective agreement has been signed…
BC Nurses’ Union (BCNU) and Health Sciences Association (HSA) are two nurses’ union that together form the Nurses’ Bargaining Association (NBA). That is one side of the BC nurse’s collective agreement. The other side is Health Employer Association of BC (HEABC). Their respective collective agreement expired on March 31st, 2022.
On April 27, 2023,
BCNU issued this news release: “Members Vote in Favour of New Provincial Collective Agreement”,
HSA issued this news release: “NBA MEMBERS VOTE IN FAVOUR OF NEW COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT”,
HEABC issued this news release: “HEABC members and Nurses’ Bargaining Association (NBA) ratify three-year agreement”, and
the BC Gov issued this news release: “Nursing deal ratified, B.C. makes first-in-Canada investments to patient care”.
All announcing an agreement.
The employee side, represented by the unions, used the words “Members vote in Favour” and the employer side used the words “ratified” and “ratify”. Voting in favour or ratifying doesn’t necessarily mean that the deal is done, signed, executed and enforceable.
Some “ratify” definitions: “to confirm by expressing consent, approval, or formal sanction”1 , or to “make (a treaty, agreement, etc.) official by signing it or voting for it”2. That doesn’t mean that ALL terms are agreed, finalized and enforceable. It simply means some degree of agreement.
A contract in negotiation could have 10 clauses, each party could declare voting in favor and ratifying one clause out of ten. Does that mean that the whole agreement is finalized? Of course not. Similarly, this is the case with the NBA Terms of Settlement 2022-2025.
Quote from a prominent Canadian law firm, McCarthy Tetrault:” … An agreement to agree is not a binding contract, as my colleague Geoff Hall pointed out in his book Canadian Contractual Interpretation Law (2007, LexisNexis), …”.3 The Terms of Settlement 2022-2025 are simply an agreement to agree, nothing more.
There’s a difference between agreeing to something and signing an effective contract.
Nurses not receiving, retroactive pay announced by their union, is non-performance of a contract unless there’s a major problem with the existence of the contract itself. More about contract execution in these footnotes:45
Terms of Settlement 2022-2025
The expired 2019-2022 collective agreement has 363 pages whereas the Terms of Settlement 2022-2025 has only 163 pages.6 On p. 24, it is stated as only a tentative agreement. It’s not signed, not dated and it states: “Proposals and Counter-proposals not addressed are withdrawn on a without prejudice basis”.7
While browsing through the agreement you can see amended clauses, sometimes with a date and timestamp of agreement or no date of agreement. Most clauses, that have a date, are dated around the end of March 2023.
On p. 84-87, Article 63 - Wage Schedules, there’s no date and timestamp of agreement.
On p. 89-92 - Seniority Increment, no signatures either and that section has a reference date of May 30th, 2023. Which is strangely one month after the news releases of all parties on April 27th, 2023.
On p. 108-109 – Enhanced Disability Management Program, no date, and no signatures. There’s an increase of the union disability management representatives from 17 to 22; that’s a 29% increase! What’s driving this demand?? Are nurses significantly becoming more disabled since 2021? In 2022, BCNU had 5.6% fewer members than in 2019.8 This increase in union disability management representatives is a tacit admission of what we all know is the real cause of the massive disabilities plaguing the public since 2021… How long will this abuse last.
Six Requests to Produce a Fully Executed Collective Agreement Have All Turned Out Negative
When a collective agreement is executed and effective it must be filed by the employer and the union with the BC Labour Relations Board (LRB) within 30 days.910 I searched the LRB for all NBA collective agreements filed with the LRB and the last one expired on March 31st, 2022. As of Oct 5th, 2023, the LRB doesn’t have a more recent HEABC/NBA agreement beyond March 31st, 2022.11
I reached out to the BC Labour Relations Board, Julie Griffth, executive director, and information officer stated: “You can find collective agreements on our website. If you don’t see the collective agreement, you are looking for on our website, it means the parties have yet to provide the Board with an executed copy. You may wish to follow up with the union or employer for a copy.”
I reached out to the Health Sciences Association (HSA), member of the Nurses’ Bargaining Association (NBA). Katie Riecken, HSA Communications, stated: “The BCNU is the lead union on the NBA agreement, so you are welcome to check with them. All I see is the Terms of Settlement, which makes me think the final agreement isn’t yet ready.”
I reached out to BCNU. Melanie Steer, Administrative Assistant – Labour Relations, stated: “The parties are working with the printers to start production of the new collective agreement, but there is no timeline of when those printed collective agreements will be made available yet.”, and directed me to the NBA Terms of Settlement 2022-2025 which is not a fully executed collective agreement.
About printing collective agreements, on p. 153 of the expired 2019-2022 collective agreement, we can clearly see its execution on June 1st, 2019, with real handwritten signatures.12 Thanks to Archive.org, which archives the web, we can see that the 2019 collective agreement was printed and available on June 15th, 2019.13 It took only two weeks to print and make available the 2019 collective agreement. Today we are past five months after the announcement of a nursing deal. BCNU Melanie Steer’s statement of explanation has no leg to stand on and fails the smell test.
I reached out to a BCNU steward, and she stated, in reference to the NBA Terms of Settlement: “The Employer is responsible for printing and providing copies to our members.” and was unable to produce an executed collective agreement.
Finally, I reached out to HEABC, the employer side, and Jimmy Smith, Media Contact Deputy Communications Director for the BC Gov nursing deal announcement, and as expected, I have yet to hear from them.
None of these parties has been able to produce a fully executed collective agreement between NBA and HEABC. Therefore, BC nurses are without a contract and have a right to vote to strike and strike.
BC Labour Relations Code - Section 49 (3) states: “If an agreement is reached as the result of collective bargaining, both parties must execute it.” So far, HEABC and NBA have failed to produce a complete and fully executed agreement. Since there’s no executed collective agreement, collective bargaining is still on-going, and nurses can vote to strike. Nurses can refer to Part 5 – Strikes, Lockouts and Picketing of the BC Labour Relations Code. Without a collective agreement, a vote to strike can proceed.
An Unexpected Kind of Signature at the End of the Terms of Settlement 2022-2025
I’m a financial analyst specialized in fraud, in particular, companies listed on a stock exchange. I routinely scrutinize the totality of circumstances of single stocks: financial statements, news releases, regulatory filings, governance structures, etc. I find things that are either missing, inconsistent, or unusually out of place.
At the very end of the NBA Terms of Settlement 2022-2025, there’s something very odd and out of place on p. 160. – Memorandum of Agreement Re: Local and Provincial Emergencies and on p. 161. - Memorandum of Agreement Re: Pandemic Information Sharing Forum, stating: “The parties acknowledge the importance of learnings from previous public health emergencies, such as those outlined in the 2003 Ontario SARS Commission final report.” This report was finalized in 2006.14 There’s no need to refer to a 17-year-old report when we have much more relevant data from the last 3 years, unless there are ulterior motives which would blow a hole in the presumption of collective bargaining in good faith.
HEABC has published their own version of the tentative agreement with the nurses along with the tentative agreements of other health care workers unions: Health Services and Support Community15, Health Service & Support Facilities16, Health Science Professionals17, and Resident Doctors of BC.18 All these unions’ tentative agreements also contain the Memorandum of Agreement Re: Pandemic Information Sharing Forum.
The 2003 SARS event is prominent in Bonnie Henry’s bio.19 20 Her career revolves around pandemics and immunology. Volume 2 – Spring of Fear - of the SARS report has 151 mentions of “Henry”.21 Bonnie Henry certainly knows every corner of that 1204 pages report.
Anyone can see how ego boosting that can be and how desperate Bonnie longs to play the self-gratifying “pandemic” game whose goal is domination of population, not sound public health policy making. Having the time to write a book in 2020, set to be published in March 202122 while having the full-time job of managing a purported pandemic raises questions. One is, if there really is a pandemic to manage, how can you have time to write a book at the height of it?
On November 1st, 2021, Bonnie Henry said: “Health care workers who are choosing to not get vaccinated against COVID-19 are perhaps “in the wrong profession”.”23
Inserting a 17-year-old report tied to the core career of a medical tyrant who publicly expressed contempt for health care workers, in the labour agreement of the very same health care workers, is a red flag of abuse of power. It has nothing to do with employment conditions and obligations of employees and employers. It is completely unnecessary in a labour agreement. The collective bargaining of all these healthcare worker unions can no longer be presumed to be of good faith.
The SARS Commission report has five volumes. Volume 1 – Spring of Fear – is the executive summary which contains 24 emergency recommendations under 17 topics.24 One of them reads like this:
The rest of these emergency recommendations are even more terrifying and in aggregate are the definition of an absolute dictatorship concentrated into a supreme ruling unaccountable Provincial Health Officer or equivalent.
In a publicly listed company, sometimes there is a relatively large group of controlling shareholders that can unfairly divert resources and power at the expense of minority shareholders having equal and proportional rights. Similarly, as the Ministry of Health consumes about 40% of the government’s budget, this is happening with the BC Ministry of Health vs. the rest of the BC Government.
A medical dictatorship is progressively being assembled by the BC Ministry of Health and the rest of the BC Government are short-sighted useful idiots being herded into it. If MLAs have two cents of self-preservation left in them, they need to wake up because that dictatorship will cancel elections; they won’t be voted out; they’ll be cancelled by an arbitrary emergency declaration from the Ministry of Health.
In criminology, the modus operandi is the method, actions, and components required to commit the crime, whereas the signature is something that is not necessary and serves the purpose of emotional and psychological gratification of the criminal and ties the crime to the criminal. In the criminal’s mind, the signature is like planting a flag and declaring ownership.
Just like some serial criminal offenders have a signature on their crime, this 2003 SARS report embedded in healthcare workers collective agreements is Bonnie Henry’s signature of abuse of power. It’s a red flag pointing to Bonnie Henry’s interference in labour relations, she’s acting way outside of her sandbox.
As for The Terms of Settlement 2022-2025, instead of having the signatures of HEABC and the NBA signatories, it has the signature of Bonnie Henry’s abuse of power in the form of the embedding of the 2003 SARS report in health care worker collective agreements.
These memorandums of agreement are the mechanism that will allow the Provincial Health Officer to create legal snafu, or legal limbo that will completely and legally override all health care workers collective agreements based on an arbitrary declaration of a health emergency or whimsical perception of a public health hazard.
This will be justified with the SARS Commission report recommendation that: “the precautionary principle, which states that action to reduce risk need not await scientific certainty, be expressly adopted as a guiding principle throughout Ontario’s health, public health and worker safety systems by way of policy statement, by explicit reference in all relevant operational standards and directions, and by way of inclusion, through preamble, statement of principle, or otherwise, in the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the Health Protection and Promotion Act, and all relevant health statutes and regulations.”.25
The ability to coerce healthcare workers by issuing public health orders, justified by the recommendations of the SARS report embedded in the collective agreements of all healthcare workers, is not the end goal. It is only a stepping stone to order mass immunization of an entire population. This is straight from the SARS Report embedded in the collective agreements of BC health care workers. P. 435 Volume 5 Chapter 11 of the SARS Report reads:26
These memorandums are a Trojan horse embedded in the collective agreements of health care workers and professional to subvert rights, the rule of law and concentrate power in one single unaccountable and unelected power-hungry bureaucrat.
These memorandums are driven by the same ideology that’s behind bill 36. Bill 36 can be repealed, gutted, or mooted by the next government. These memorandums will survive changes of government if ratified in any executed collective agreement. They are building blocks of a medical dictatorship.
Conclusions
The press releases announcing a deal for the BC nurses are lying by telling the truth. The BC Government, the employers and the unions are cunning the nurses into thinking that a full and complete executed contract is in effect with the language they used in their news releases. NBA member nurses and stewards have been deceived and cheated of their right to vote for and to strike.
Nurses should strike immediately, not for pay increases, as this has already been settled, but for the following demands:
1 – Rescind all remaining public health orders, the public is done with that quackery.
2 - Resignation of Minister Adrian Dix
3 - Full and immediate reinstatement of terminated nurses with back pay and damages; This is approximately 10% of the nursing workforce.
4 – Opening of a criminal investigation on Bonnie Henry and other officials for severe abuse of powers.
5 - Immediate termination with cause of Bonnie Henry for introducing multiple health hazards to the province of British Columbia, specifically:
foreknowledge that the public health orders would cause staff shortages27 which I also measured in this previous post: At Least 4762 (9.7%) Missing Nurses Because of the STILL ON-GOING Covid-19 Vaccine Mandates for BC Healthcare Workers
foreknowledge that the public health orders would negatively affect overdose prevention.28
On drug overdoses in 2021, the CBC reported “26% increase in fatalities over 2020; about 7 deaths per day recorded in November and December” and highlighted November and December 2021, right when the PHO vaccination mandates were put in place.29
The hypocrisy of Bonnie Henry and the Ministry of Health claiming to care for the most vulnerable, long-term care and overdose patients, is nauseating.
the intent to make the vaccine requirement permanent regardless of the evolution of the pandemic and its initial justifications or reasonability is documented in a confidential brief30 dated on September 27th, 2021, written by HEABC to Mark Armitage - Ministry of Health, advising against placing unvaccinated employees on an Indefinite Unpaid Leave of Absence. Note the punitive intention with the “can be ignored without any lasting employment consequences.” language.
For all to see, the punitive, malicious intent and capricious rationales of this full confidential brief from HEABC to the Ministry of Health released under FOI HTH-2022-21645 is available here.
To many nurses, the idea of striking in the midst of a crippled healthcare system may sound inhumane and unfair to the patients that they care for. I get it. But the current state of the BC healthcare system is caused by extremely bad government policies. When a ship is sinking, the right thing to do is to save women and children first, then able men, then the old and handicapped and the captain sinks with ship. Likewise, striking to remove bad policy makers is the right thing to do to save the future generations. Striking until the above demands are met is the greatest act of public care that BC health care workers can do.
To the nurses: Strike hard and show no mercy to this incompetent and corrupt government because it will keep abusing and disrespecting you with quackery and policies causing public health harm. You will not be bought into silence with broken promises of pay increases. Healthcare represents 40% of the BC government expenses or operations. Bring it to a grinding halt and this government will end immediately.
Public opinion is behind the nurses, not behind Bonnie Henry or the NDP government. If nurses strike, the public will suffer, but the public also knows that the NDP government has acted deceitfully and will turn against the NDP government and rally behind the striking nurses.
BCNU has abandoned its representation duties. BCNU council members have failed their oversight duties. They must all resign.
Nurses and other health care workers unhappy with their union behaviors should look into proceeding with a partial decertification of their union. Here’s the link on how to go about it: https://www.labourwatch.com/downloads/decertify-guide
Health care workers can also look into filing an unfair labour practice complaint. LabourWatch.com is a good place to start looking.
All health care union members should look into decertification as their unions have become captured instruments of medical tyranny and will become their prison. Once they regain their individual bargaining rights, the government won’t be able to use it against them. See: BC Government Has Captured BC Nurses' Union (BCNU)
Dr. William Makis was recently on the Dr. Drew show and said they're pushing for mandates with an "access to Doctor" angle so this is not surprising. If BC gets away with it, it will go everywhere.
http://rumble.com/v3mpmb1-health-the-uns-path-to-global-control-w-reggie-littlejohn-dr.-makis-and-dr..html
(Dr. Makis' interview starts around 41:00 and the comment about mandates is around 1:14:00)