UNA Labour Relations Director seeks meeting with top AHS negotiations official

Open and honest discussion and information sharing are the hallmarks of good faith bargaining, United Nurses of Alberta Labour Relations Director David Harrigan reminded his counterpart at Alberta Health Services in a letter seeking a meeting sent today. 

Unfortunately, Harrigan told AHS Executive Director of Negotiations and Labour Relations Leland McEwen, that has not been UNA’s experience with the province’s largest health care employer during the current round of negotiations.

Harrigan cited Finance Minister Travis Toews’s misleading claim UNA is “playing games in the media” by trying to resume bargaining for a new collective agreement, the constantly shifting and often contradictory stories by government and AHS officials about plans to lay off nurses, and the unwillingness of senior AHS officials to correct false statements made by the health minister.

Harrigan asked for a meeting with McEwen to clarify the overall impact on FTE of workforce changes to the direct nursing bargaining unit represented by UNA mentioned in a letter sent yesterday by McEwen to Harrigan. Statements in the letter were at variance with claims made by Health Minister Tyler Shandro during his Oct. 13 news conference.

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