When members of one of the largest unions in B.C. hit the picket lines more than a year ago, cost of living increases were at the heart of their strike for a new deal.
More than nine months after reaching an agreement, however, some members of the B.C. General Employees’ Union (BCGEU) aren’t getting paid what they’re due — including wildland firefighters on the frontlines of the province’s record-breaking wildfire season.
“Our last piece of information we received from the government is that there are over 9,000 open tickets right now for wage adjustments that still are outstanding,” BCGEU treasurer Paul Finch told Global News.
“An average wildland firefighter makes about $27 to $29 an hour, so the bulk of their pay comes in the form of overtime. That overtime is not being paid within the time limits it should.”
The deal reached with the provincial government’s BC Public Service Agency includes retroactive pay increases.
Some members are missing out on overtime pay, retroactive increases and retroactive increases on overtime pay, Finch said. In the case of wildland firefighters, they’re missing increases to stipends and per diems as well.
He suggested the outsourcing of government payroll services many years ago is to blame and questioned the efficacy of the software being used to carry out the human resources tasks.
“What the union wants to see is this work move back in-house in the government with an explicit mandate to make sure we’re using modern systems that are automated where possible, and basically we’re able to provision this quickly.”
Global News is aware of one BCGEU health-care worker who is still getting paid $25.90 per hour — about $1,006 weekly before tax — but is now owed $26.07 per hour dating back to April 2022. That adds up to about $1,049 weekly before tax.
That individual is now short around $2,200, and is yet to receive an April 2023 wage increase to $27.83 per hour, which means they’re owed another $1,225 before tax as well.
Payment backlogs are impacting nurses too, with some nurses now missing tens of thousands of dollars owed after a new collective agreement was reached with the BC Nurses’ Union in April.
In an emailed statement, Vancouver Coastal Health said it’s working hard to implement the new provisions outlined in the collective agreement, “prioritizing changes that best support our nurses.”
“While the Nurses’ Bargaining Association agreement is complex and has led to a number of changes, the payment schedule is on par with other collective agreements. The new wage rates came into effect July 7, 2023,” the health authority said.
“Retroactive payments will be processed as soon as administratively possible (late summer/early fall 2023).”
The Fraser Health Authority also said it’s committed to ensuring all impacted medical staff receive retroactive pay as soon as possible. The authority said the new deal required a “complicated manual review of payments” for tens of thousands of staff, as well as “additional time to build and test our systems to introduce new pay requirements.”
Nurses did receive new pay rates on their July 14 cheques, it added.
Premier David Eby said the health minister has reached out to the health authorities to try to rectify the issues.
“I find it very frustrating that health authorities have been challenged in getting out the compensation to the nurses that we agreed to, that we promised to them, but probably only a fraction as frustrated as our nurses that are seeing a rising cost of living,” he told Global News.
“We understand that each health authority is on a slightly different schedule, but the nurses are going to get the money they deserve, not just because of the work that they do but the agreement we struck, and that is a critically important issue for us.”
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