Opinion: Nurses' job action about fairness and support, not just wages

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On July 24, the Nurses’ Bargaining Association, which represents more than 55,000 nurses across B.C., agreed to binding arbitration to conclude our contract dispute with the Health Employers’ Association of B.C.

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This decision ended the longest nursing strike in B.C.’s history, which saw province-wide restrictions on overtime and non-nursing duties and picket lines at seven health-care facilities.

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The nurses’ association chose voluntary binding arbitration after 10 months of tense negotiations because it offers the best path to improve nurses’ compensation, one of our members’ highest bargaining priorities.

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But this dispute has never been simply about wages. It is about whether B.C. can retain enough nurses to ensure people can access the care they need when they need it.

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The province faces a severe nursing shortage. By the government’s own estimates, B.C. will need more than 30,000 nurses in the next decade.

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Yet, despite acknowledging the scale of the problem, it is clear the government and employers have no plan to fix it.

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First, there aren’t enough people entering the profession.

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B.C. only graduates around 2,000 nurses a year. Rather than expanding training, the province has cut supports for nursing students, including the new graduate bursary, and allowed the nursing tuition grant to expire. Vancouver Community College has had to cancel this year’s incoming nursing class due to budgetary shortfalls.

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While the government’s finances are under pressure, there has been enough money for a $241 million funding increase for construction trades training. At the same time, working conditions continue to cause burnout and injuries that make it increasingly difficult to keep working nurses at the bedside.

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Retention is also a question of fairness.

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B.C. has the highest cost of living in Canada, yet a new nurse must spend at least 10 years climbing the provincial wage grid before reaching the highest pay level. That is five years longer than if that nurse had instead entered a male-dominated profession such as firefighting or policing.

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And while nurses don’t receive the same compensation as firefighters or police, they do experience many of the same safety risks as those jobs.

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Every 16 hours, a nurse files a WorkSafeBC claim, and injuries related to violence have increased by 46 per cent over the past several years. Nurses are also at extremely high rates of musculoskeletal injuries and exposure to biological and unknown toxic substances.

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Our 23 days of job action exposed just how dependent health authorities have become on overtime.

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During the overtime restriction, employers were required to seek the union’s approval before scheduling overtime. They requested over 400,000 hours of overtime during this period, with more than 100,000 hours requested in the first few days alone. That averages out to more than 1,400 overtime shifts every day in B.C.