REGINA – Specialized health care professionals in Saskatchewan have rejected the latest contract offer from their employers. The union representing the workers, Health Sciences Association of Saskatchewan (HSAS), said 80 per cent of those voting rejected a “final offer” from health care employers represented by SAHO.
“Our professionals have spoken loud and clear: they reject this unfair, disrespectful contract offer, which did not provide full retroactivity on proposed wage adjustments,” said HSAS president Karen Wasylenko.
Wasylenko also stated the rejected offer would have capped licensing fees paid by employers.
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The Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations (SAHO) applied to the labour relations board in April to conduct a vote on the final offer.
The rejected offer would have given the specialized health care workers a 6.5 per cent wage increase over four years along with enhanced premiums.
Retroactivity would have been capped at 20 months. HSAS employees have been without a contract for 25 months.
“SAHO seems determined to try to provoke Health Sciences into taking job action, rather than bargain in good faith,” said Wasylenko.
SAHO has not responded to the contract rejection.
In a question and answer handout to HSAS members prior to the vote, SAHO said if the final offer was rejected, the sides would remain at an impasse. SAHO stated there would be no obligation for them to come back to the bargaining table with a better offer.
The parties have spent 38 days attempting to negotiate a new contract. The HSAS bargaining committee rejected the final offer on April 28, 2015.
HSAS said 2,268 ballots were returned, a 63 per cent participation rate.
In 2011, HSAS went on a series of rotating strikes that lasted seven weeks to back contract demands.
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