Current three-year agreements are set to expire March 31 but some negotiations are starting early amid given current economic challenges
A sizable provincial deficit and the threat of 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian exports to the U.S. are weighing heavily on collective bargaining for B.C.’s public sector employees.
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The challenging economic conditions have led to several unions starting negotiations early. The B.C. General Employees Union starts talks with the province’s Public Service Agency on Jan. 22, despite the current three-year collective agreement not expiring until March 31.
BCGEU president Paul Finch said the goal of what he expects to be a very difficult negotiation is to get additional compensation for the 34,000 of his members who work for the provincial government.
He said the last round of negotiations didn’t keep up with inflation, despite BCGEU members getting an average 14 per cent increase to their salary. That led to a two-week strike in August and September of 2022.
“One of the biggest issues with the last round of bargaining was that our agreement fell just short of inflation,” said Finch. “As a result, our members only agreed to the agreement by 53 per cent, so obviously that gives us pause.”
He is prepared for tougher negotiations this time as the government’s financial situation could leave less room for flexible funding that can be used for the union’s priorities outside general wage increases, which are set by the province and applied to all public sector employees.
Finch says there are always ways the government can raise additional revenue, such as reducing the discount it sells natural resources on the world market.
“We believe that the funds are there to address affordability concerns of members in the civil service,” he said.
Finance Minister Brenda Bailey told Postmedia the salary increase it is willing to offer public employees will be decided by the need to “balance the province’s fiscal situation, the broader economic landscape, and the continuing need to support robust public services.”
According to the ministry, every one per cent increase to wages costs $400 million in additional provincial spending.
As for other requests, Finch said he wants the NDP to commit to increasing the ratio of managers to unionized employees, which is now three unionized employees for every manager, and bring it back to the historical 4-to-1 ratio.
While the BCGEU’s priority is increasing wages, B.C. Nurses’ Union president Adriane Gear says her members are primarily focused on improving workplace conditions that have deteriorated in recent years.
She said staf shortages are forcing nurses to work impossibly long shifts, providing an anecdote of one nurse who worked a 22-hour shift one day then a 16-hour shift the next.
“We don’t have enough nurses in this province. Currently, at any given time, we’re about 6000 nurses short,” said Gear, explaining the minimum nurse-to-patient ratios that were agreed to by health authorities during the last round of bargaining haven’t been implemented.
“Nurses continue to leave the profession because of the conditions they face at work.”
Outside of understaffing, Gear said her members still face danger from patients using drugs in health-care settings and confronting nurses with aggressive, and sometimes violent, behaviour.
She believes the province could save money in the long run by spending more on public sector nurses, as it spends millions of dollars on private agency nurses to fill in gaps.
“Stabilizing the staffing situation in B.C. and implementing ratios is proven to reduce length of stay, is proven to reduce readmission, it’s proven to reduce mortality rates and complication,” Gear said.
The nurses’ union hasn’t started negotiations yet and will wait until its agreement expires on March 31.
The union is meeting with members from all six health authorities this week in preparation for the provincial bargaining conference in February, where nurses will outline their priorities for a new collective agreement.
Mark Thompson, a professor at the UBC Sauder School of Business and an expert on public sector bargaining, said the government is going to face a difficult time handling the demands of all 400,000 public sector workers whose contracts are set to expire over the next year.
He said everyone is likely “standing on one foot” to see whether U.S. President Donald Trump will make good on his tariff threat before getting into serious discussions.
“When you’re dealing with a three-year agreement or something like that, the less predictable the economic situation, the more disruptive that is for bargaining,” said Thompson. “Inflation, Trump’s tariffs, the market for lumber in the United States, all those kind of things that are totally outside the purview of the province, and yet both labour and management have to deal with the consequences.
What Thompson expects is for unions to begin by negotiating their smaller asks while waiting to get a clearer picture of what the province’s fiscal situation will be over the next few years.
That could mean negotiations end up being drawn out over many months and potentially could get contentious as the government tries to do more with less.
“Who would sign a collective agreement without some firm understanding of what the U.S. trade policy is going to do to the economy?” asked Thompson.