After seven months of bargaining, the provinces health science professionals ... the modern health care team that delivers the diagnostic, clinical and rehabilitation services British Columbians rely on for their health ... are taking a strike vote.

The Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA) strike vote comes after talks broke off October 31 when the employers association (HEABC) explained it cannot engage in meaningful bargaining because of a restrictive -cooperative gains" bargaining mandate imposed by the BC government.

The government announced today through the Health Employers Association of BC (HEABC) that bargaining a fair collective agreement for health science professionals ... who have been without a contract since April 2012 ... is not on the agenda.

The day after the Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA) tabled a framework agreement that includes a modest wage increase, HEABC returned to the table, explaining its hands are tied by the Ministry of Health, which refuses to apply the governments cooperative gains mandate for meaningful bargaining at the table.

After more than six months of talks, the Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSBPA) today tabled a wage proposal in contract discussions with the Health Employers Association of BC (HEABC).

The proposal is for 2% wage increases effective April 1, 2012 and April 1, 2013.

Hospital pharmacists are chronically understaffed. Theyre overextended in caring for patients who are increasingly acutely ill when they arrive at hospital. Clinical pharmacists ... along with other health science professionals -- are concerned that a chronic recruitment and retention crisis is eroding clinical care in BC.

Clinical pharmacists have been speaking up to government representatives and reaching out to supporters about their important role in quality health care:

Members of the Heath Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA) bargaining committee spent the past several days in productive discussions with the Health Employers Association of BC (HEABC) aimed at finding ways to contain and manage costs of benefits without reducing benefits that have previously been negotiated.

Health Sciences Association, on behalf of the Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA), is calling for the withdrawal of a province-wide policy that threatens to fire health science professionals who refuse to declare whether they have been vaccinated against seasonal flu.

In the wake of tentative agreements reached in the master provincial government workers (BCGEU) and nurses bargaining (NBA) contracts, the Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA) and Health Employers Association of BC (HEABC) return to the bargaining table today.

Jeanne Meyers, chief negotiator for the HSPBA, said the bargaining association is optimistic that the tentative agreements achieved at those two tables signals a willingness by government to return to the health science professionals bargaining table with an appetite to bargain.

HSA, on behalf of the Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA), has achieved a significant win in the continuing dispute regarding the application of interim classification modifications which affect reporting relationships and rates of pay. The interim measures were tied to the work of the Joint Classification Committee (JCC) negotiated in the 2010-2012 collective agreement and do not stand alone.

HSA is profiling the hard work of members with a series of TV, print and on line ads running September and October.
 
-The public will be seeing a great deal of our members this fall," said HSA President Reid Johnson. -Since the beginning of September weve been running online ads to celebrate our support for Run for the Cure and our work helping breast cancer patients with diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and prevention. Those ads are now being boosted by print ads running in communities all over BC.
 

Bargaining for a new Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association collective agreement resumed this week against the backdrop of a pessimistic pronouncement by BCs Minister of Finance, Hon. Mike de Jong, about the state of the provinces finances. Once again, a finance minister is revising predictions that called for a rosy future and sombrely telling British Columbians that the deficit is on the rise, and costs have to be contained.