Any change to the public sector mandate could mean a windfall for government unions, but experts say costs may be worth it.
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The B.C. Nurses’ Union hasn’t been on strike since 1989 and labour relations experts say it’s going to take the provincial government opening the purse strings to come up with a lasting solution to the current job action.
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Currently in mediation under the direction of veteran mediators Vince Ready and Amanda Rogers, the B.C. Nurses’ Union and the Health Employers Association of B.C. appear to still be far apart on everything from benefits to the implementation of nurse-to-patient ratios promised by the province in 2022.
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Farinaz Havaei, an associate professor at the University of B.C.’s School of Nursing, said the issue of understaffing and burnout among nurses stems from the early 2000s when there were cuts to provincial funding, and COVID-19 exacerbated those problems.
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She said that as much as the government feels like it can’t spend more money on public sector unions, the costs of not addressing the crisis facing the health-care system could be even higher.
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“The stakes here … extend beyond this round of bargaining. They’re also about the long-term stability of our workforce and ultimately the sustainability of the health system,” said Havaei.
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BCNU president Adriane Gear has said the province is pleading that it has no more money for the union, amid a $13.3 billion deficit and following a 12 per cent over four years settlement with the B.C. General Employees’ Union that cost the government more than it originally intended to spend.
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If the nurses were to get mediators or the government to agree to a collective agreement with higher wage increases, then all other unions would get the same amount and costs would balloon further.
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“It was made very clear that they cannot go beyond mandate, and so here we are. So read into that how you will,” said Gear last week before the start of mediation. “There’s substantive challenges that we weren’t able to overcome, and the government has maintained that they cannot manoeuvre.”
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Among the concerns from the union are a potential loss of benefits including physiotherapy, and the understaffing that has left between 4,500 and 6,000 nursing positions unfilled.
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In a 2023 study, Havaei and her colleagues found that 32.8 per cent of nurses planned to leave their jobs for a different profession post-pandemic, while a further 12.4 per cent planned on leaving in four years. This study was a followup from research in 2015, before the pandemic and other strains on the health-care system. Even then, 50 per cent of nurses said they were likely to leave their jobs over the next year. Of those nurses, 75 per cent cited workload as a key factor, while up to 67 per cent also reported the physical demands of nursing.
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Barry Eidlin, an associate sociology professor at McGill University in Montreal, says nurses across the country have been voicing their displeasure with understaffing and poor working conditions.
