After eight months of bargaining for a new collective agreement, the Health Employers Association of BC (HEABC) last week finished tabling proposals amounting to significant concessions for the provinces health science professionals collective agreement.

Chief Negotiator for the Health Science Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA) Maureen Headley said the package tabled is an insult to HSA and other union members covered by the contract.

The 2011 Canadian Labour Congress winter school, one of Canadas best labour schools, is scheduled for Harrison Hot Springs, in January and February 2011. Registration is now open.

Are you concerned about the BC government's introduction of hospital user fees? Worried about the state of Home and Community Care for seniors and disabilities? Troubled by the growth of for-profit clinics and their legal attack on Medicare?

Federal Liberal Health Critic Ujjal Dosanjh has organized a Special Town Hall meeting on the future of Canadian Health Care to in Vancouver to launch a national dialogue on how to best defend, strengthen and improve the health care system over the course of the next decade.

The Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC and the Early Childhood Educators of BC is seeking participation in a survey on an Integrated System of Early Care and Learning in BC.

The Emerging Plan for an Integrated System of Early Care and Learning in BC responds to the growing role ministries of education are playing in the early years. You can download the briefing note here.

BC Health Coalition Action Alert:

Dear Friend of Medicare,

This week, take a moment to call your MLA and tell them to scrap BCs user fee scheme for hospital care.

During the Weeks of Action on Home and Community care, public health care supporters are meeting with decision-makers in dozens of BC ridings to demand a stop to hospital user fees and to improve home and community care services.

Tomorrow night, please join fellow health science professionals in a celebration of the life of Kully Sekhon.

Kully was a highly respected Victoria-area social worker who helped thousands of people during the course of her career in acute, residential, and community care.

When Kullys life was cut short by cancer last fall, her colleagues came together to propose an education fund in her memory ... a fund that would offer scholarships to all professionals working with the elderly.

The unions bargaining on behalf of 15,000 community social services workers will be meeting November 4 with the employer to begin discussions on essential services.

'Essential services' is the labour relations term to describe which services must be maintained during a strike or lockout by both employees and employers. Typically, services that are vital to protecting the health and safety of vulnerable people are considered essential. For example: some basic residential services will still be provided for the developmentally disabled.  

BC Health Coalition Action Alert

Dear Friend of Medicare,

We're calling on you to join with public health care supporters in your community to demand quality and accessible health care for seniors and people with disabilities.

As a part of the home and community care weeks of action this month, write a letter to your local papers and have your say.

BC Health Coalition calls on province to reverse its directive requiring health authorities to charge fees to patients who need hospital care to recover from illness or injury

The BC Health Coalition is concerned that core hospital services previously provided to patients free of charge as required by the Canada Health Act are now subject to so-called -convalescent care" fees that health authorities began to impose over the spring and summer.

Employment security will enhance stability and quality services for the people who need them in a time of tremendous change and government cuts. The Health Sciences Association and other unions representing more than 15,000 community social services workers have made employment security and continuity of services a centrepiece of the bargaining associations proposals at the bargaining table. 

The unions' proposals on employment security include: