The Nova Scotia Council of Health Care Unions, NSHA and IWK have completed three days of conciliation and plan to meet again in January for another five days. The last three days provided good discussion and some important progress towards a new collective agreement. However, a lot of work remains. The parties have held 27 bargaining dates in total now, as they work to conclude a very complex set of negotiations that require bringing together collective agreements from all four unions (CUPE, NSGEU, Unifor and NSNU) in the acute care and community care sectors. This was made necessary when the provincial Liberal government created a single provincial health authority. Despite the progress, a number of very significant items remain outstanding including job posting, job security, sick leave, group benefits, retiree benefits, vacation scheduling, leaves, overtime, hours of work and more. This remains a long and challenging process but the Council of Health … Read more…