HEALTH CARE BARGAINING UPDATE #21

No health care worker left behind

January 17, 2023

Your union, CUPE, has been hard at work fighting to hold the employer accountable for their side of the new collective agreement.

The new collective agreement came into force on September 23, 2022.  This means everything comes into effect on that date unless the Memorandum of Settlement (MOS) document says otherwise.  For example, the Health Spending Account (HSA) did not come into effect until January 1, 2023.

There are a few other items that have different effective dates as well.  Improvements like single day vacation, double overtime, meals during OT, etc. all came into effect on September 23, 2022.  However, not all the Employers have implemented all these new articles yet.  CUPE filed a grievance on this issue.  We also spoke to the media about our concerns with the Employers slow implementation of our new contract.

Keep track of anything that you should be entitled to such as double OT, and it will get adjusted retroactively.

Selkirk Mental Health Centre (SMHC), Addictions Foundation of Manitoba (AFM) and Cadham Provincial Laboratory (CPL) have not officially transferred to the new collective agreement so the rules for these groups will not change until that transfer occurs.  You will be notified when that will take place.  AFM has transferred payroll system, however SMHC and CPL have not yet done the transfer, but we expect that to happen at the end of February 2023.  The transition of payroll does not mean that the transition to the CUPE collective agreement has occurred yet.  The collective agreements for these three sites only (SMHC, AFM and CPL) remain in place until further notice.

Retro pay for most sites has been paid.  For any groups that had a different expiry date or received increases in any of the years between 2017 and 2022 would have had their retro pay adjusted.  The retro pay for retired members will be paid soon.  CUPE had requested that the 90-day deadline to apply for retro pay be extended for former employees, but the Employer rejected our request.

SMc:cbc/cope 491

17-Jan-23