By Patrick Book

Health sciences union talks break off

Jun 9, 2011 | 4:43 PM

It's a sudden shift in temperature between the Health Sciences Association of Saskatchewan (HSAS) and Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations (SAHO) as contract talks have broken off again.

HSAS walked out of a planned bargaining session in Regina Thursday afternoon, saying SAHO has rejected their latest counter-offer.

After receiving a new contract proposal from SAHO Wednesday, HSAS President Cathy Dickson, presented a counter offer during a brief eight minute meeting.

That proposal dropped HSAS' wage increase request from 18.5 per cent over four years to 14.5 per cent. It also asked for other measures like retroactive pay to the end of the union's previous contract, which expired on March 31, 2009.

Counter offer rejected

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That proposal wasn't accepted with open arms. In fact, Dickson insisted the members of the bargaining committee were downright rude during the short discussion.

“It was like, 'What part of final offer don't you understand?' whereas yesterday they literally told us, 'You can come and bring a proposal forward and we will recommend it',” said Dickson.

She says it appears the head of SAHO and the government, are suffering from a serious case of miscommunication with their bargaining unit.

This means that HSAS workers in Saskatchewan will have to prepare to return to the picket lines.

“We had told them we would escalate and we will escalate,” Dickson warned. She refused to say where or when pickets will go up but admitted that job action could resume as early as Friday morning.

SAHO responds

Meanwhile, SAHO President Susan Antosh disagrees with Dickson's assessment of the day's meeting. Antosh says her bargaining team never told the union to make a counter-offer.

“My bargaining committee made it clear yesterday when they presented the final offer that it was a final offer, that we were asking them to take it to their members for a vote. But even though it was a final offer, if there were some very minor adjustments or clarifications required, we would of course be prepared to discuss that. We would never close down the communication channels,” said Antosh.

Antosh says it was only one specific item the bargaining team was willing to keep working on Thursday, not the entire package. She stresses that they asked HSAS to resume bargaining back in May but they haven't bothered to engage in the process in the interim.

Antosh says the offer HSAS came back with is “out of the realm of reality” and is without basis.

SAHO will continue to ask the union to allow members to vote on their final offer. Antosh isn't willing to publicly discuss what other alternatives may be at available if the two sides continue to remain at an impasse.

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