Message to All HIS Members Affected BY NSH Decision to Contract Out Services

 

Message to All HIS Members Affected by NSH Decision to

Contract Out Services

 

We are holding a Zoom meeting for affected HIS employees on Monday, January 18, 2021 at 7 pm.  Please ensure you have a link to the Zoom meeting where you can join using you computer or cell phone.  There is also a toll-free number is you choose to call-in manually.  If you haven’t received the link please contact your Area VP who can forward it to you.  The call will be hosted by Karen Mackenzie, CUPE National Representative, Nan McFadgen, President CUPE Nova Scotia and myself, Bev Strachan, President CUPE 8920.

 

The Contracting Out provisions of your collective agreement is long-standing and complex language that originated between the NSGEU and Capital Health. The Unions have held several discussions with Nova Scotia Health (NSH) in order to come to agreement on how to proceed with the Article should NSH hold to its decision to contract out your work.

 

In our view, NSH has already breached some of the Articles outlined below, and we have filed a grievance as a result.

 

Among other things, the Employer has not offered the conditional Transition Support Program (TSP, also referred to as enhanced severance) when it first made employees aware it was contracting out their work. This is a clear breach of the agreement. Just as importantly, it leaves employees without any communication from the employer about the potential TSP they may be offered. It is unclear when the employer intends to make the conditional TSP offer to affected employees, but the delay gives employees less time to consider their options.

 

Typically, NSH would provide detailed information to affected employees, including the potential of a TSP offer and the amounts long before now. NSH has given employees no information since a December 11^th, 2020, memo saying the decision to contract had been made. Publicly, NSH has made some contradictory statements, in comparison to what information was given to employees.

 

Given the lack of information from the Employer, we shall share the following information to try to help you understand the contracting out provisions of your collective agreement. It is a step-by-step review of each Article. Please contact your Area VP if you have further questions.

 

I look forward to speaking with you on our upcoming call!

 

In Solidarity,

Bev Strachan

President, CUPE 8920

 

 

 

 

 

Explaining Your Contracting Out Article

 

Contracting Out provisions of your collective agreement are contained with other job security provisions in Article 32. You can find your collective agreement on our website at www.8920.cupe.ca

 

 

Transition Support Payments (TSP)

 

Under the contracting out provisions of the collective agreement, TSP payments are offers of enhanced severance that employee may choose to accept but are not required to accept (it is important to note, that while the TSP amounts are outlined in Article 33, not all aspects of the TSP Article apply to contracting out).  Here’s how TSP is calculated:

 

Article 33.01 (1.9) explains that an employee who agrees to accept TSP shall receive the equivalent of four weeks pay for each year of service to a maximum of 52 weeks of TSP pay. At a minimum, employees cannot receive less than eight weeks TSP pay. The TSP is pro-rated for a partial year. An employee who takes the TSP and then retires and is entitled to receive the retirement allowance shall receive the retirement allowance. But the combined total of the retirement allowance and the TSP shall not exceed 52 weeks.

 

The TSP provisions also outline the formula for part-time hours, explains continuation of benefits and allows the TSP to be paid out in a lump sum or in incremental payments among other things. The TSP also includes a transition allowance for retraining or other expenses.

 

 

The contracting out section begins with Article 32.24. Here’s how it is supposed to work:

 

1. 24 (a) Notice of Contracting Out

The Employer is to provide the Union with 16 weeks notice of the implementation of the decision to contract out work. At the same time that the Employer provides this notice, it is to make a conditional TSP payment (explained at the end of this summary) offer to the employees directly affected by the contracting out. Final acceptance by the Employer of Employees wishing to accept the TSP payment offer is conditional on the Employer reaching an agreement with the Contractor.

As explained above, NSH failed to make conditional TSP payment offers when the Union received notice. That is a breach of this clause. It remains unclear to the Unions when this conditional offer will be made. We believe this should happen immediately.

 

 

2. 24 (c) and (d) Union/Employer Response 

The Union has 4 weeks after receiving notice of the implementation of contracting out to make proposals, including proposals to avoid contracting out, to the Employer. We did that. Our proposal can be found on our website at www.8920.cupe.ca

After receipt of the proposals, the Employer shall consider them and either accept or reject the proposals, in whole or in part.

At this time, the Employer will either abandon the plan to contract out and retract the unconditional TSP offers to affected members. Or, it will proceed with the contracting out. If it proceeds it must then make the offer of TSP payments to the employees directly affected unconditional. This means employees would have a few days to either choose to take TSP and retire or otherwise leave their jobs when the contracting out occurs or employees may choose to seek placement in another position with NSH.

The Employer has advised the Unions that it will respond to the Unions proposal in a week or two. Assuming it rejects the proposal, it must then make unconditional TSP offers to the employees directly affected by the contracting out.

 

3. 24 (e) Hiring Preference 

The Employer will make every reasonable effort to obtain jobs with the Contractor for employees directly affected by the contracting out who have not exercised their right to a TSP under 32.24 (d).

 

4. 24 (f) TSP Payment Offers

 

Where the Employer determines there will be redundant positions as a result of contracting out, it will offer another TSP payment. This time the offer of TSP will be made to classifications agreed with the Unions which will include, at a minimum, the classifications of employees affected in the work area by the contracting out.

 

This means that whenever there are redundant positions as a result of contracting out, which would be the case here, this second, TSP offer must be made. It must be made, at a minimum, to the same classifications of employees as those affected by the contracting out in the work area, or to more classifications as mutually agreed by the parties.

 

So, NSHA must, at a minimum, offer all HIS employees, not just those directly affected by the contracting out, at all 24 work sites, the TSP. The obligation to make this second, TSP offer applies regardless of the existence of pre-existing “appropriate vacancies”. Pre-existing vacancies are not considered until the next stage of the process, which presumes that a TSP offer has been made to employees other than those directly affected by the contracting out.

 

 

5. 24 (g) (i) Placement Procedure

 

If a sufficient number of employees accept the TSP offer made under sub-section (f) the Employer will place the remaining employees whose positions were declared redundant in the vacancies created by the acceptance of the TSP payment offers, or in other appropriate vacancies. This requires that the Employer consider first, vacancies created by the TSP offers. If they aren’t sufficient to accommodate all the employees whose positions were declared redundant, then placement in other appropriate vacancies may be offered.

 

This sequence, TSP offers, placement in the resulting vacancies, and then consideration of other appropriate vacancies, is consistent with the structure of the clause and the requirement under 32.24 (f) that the second TSP offer be made.

 

6. 24 (g) (ii) Placement Procedure

 

Employees directly affected by the contracting out who decline a placement in a vacant position under sub-article (g) (i) that pays at least 90% of the present salary of their current position and is in the same geographic location* as their redundant position will be deemed to be laid off and will be paid severance, which in most cases would be considerably less than the TSP payment to which they would have been entitled.

 

(*Geographic location is defined in Article 32 (b) as being within 60 km driving distance of their existing building except in Halifax Regional Municipality where it is 50 km driving distance.)

 

 

7. 24 (h) Second TSP Offer

 

If there are still employees remaining in positions that have been declared redundant after vacancies created by the TSP offer in sub-clause (g) or other appropriate vacancies have been canvassed, the Employer will make another TSP offer to broader classifications of employees and place the employees who are in redundant positions in the vacancies created by this TSP offer or in other appropriate vacancies. These “other appropriate vacancies” would, presumably, be different vacancies than those considered under sub-clause (g).

 

8. 24 (i) Further TSP Payment Offers

 

The process of expanding the offer of TSP payments to other classifications and other areas will be repeated until all the employees whose positions have been declared redundant as a result of contracting out have been placed. This is subject to the limitation that employees do not have to accept placement in vacancies that are outside their geographic location or that pay less than 90% of the salary of their position and the further limitation that the Employer does not have to make TSP payments to more than the number of employees whose positions were declared redundant as a result of contracting out.

 

That is our interpretation of the Article. The key features are the requirement to make at least two TSP offers – one to the employees directly affected by the contracting out and one to employees in the same classification and work area to create vacancies for employees directly affected by the contracting out.