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The breakthrough provincial contract won by 3,000 hospital workers in Nova Scotia illustrates in dramatic fashion that timing and tactics are key in collective bargaining.
More than a year before the agreement was reached, CUPE laid the groundwork by declaring that it would settle for nothing less than total job security, a significant wage increase and, most important, a single provincial agreement for all employees.
It was an ambitious agenda, complicated by the need to win a series of run-off votes for the right to represent hospital workers at the bargaining table. Precipitated by provincial restructuring, the votes pitted CUPE against several other unions, including NSGEU, the CAW and IUOE.
CUPE came through with flying colours, sweeping the voting at 33 hospitals and boosting overall CUPE hospital membership from about 1,800 to more than 3,000 province-wide. One of the main factors in the outcome was the clear bargaining agenda that CUPE had set.
After that, the unions provincial bargaining committee swung quickly into action, attempting to capitalize on the provinces shifting political climate.
The NDP had just won six of 10 Nova Scotia seats in the 1997 federal election, all from the Liberals. The provincial Liberals were also on the ropes, struggling to hang onto power with a newly elected leader.
CUPE pushed hard and succeeded in bringing negotiations to a head before the provincial governments mandate expired. In fact, the timing could not have been more perfect. A province-wide strike was set for March 24, the very day that Nova Scotians went to the polls.
Just before the vote, the Liberals had become so desperate they were ready to do almost anything including making peace with their unions.
The final hours of negotiations were almost comical. The provinces bargaining team caved in with scarcely a whimper on one big issue after another. Wage increases, job security, province-wide agreement, even restoration of a 1994 3% wage rollback, were all agreed to as the clock ticked past midnight and into the final 24 hours before election day.
But the biggest gain for many employees was wage parity with employees at the highest-paid hospital in the province, the QEII hospital in Halifax. Only a year earlier it had seemed impossible, yet now the government was agreeing. And the result will be huge increases for many employees over the life of the 41-month agreement.
The deal was struck at 3:15 a.m. on March 23 and was later ratified province-wide by a vote of 92%.
The ratification vote told the story, said National Representative Lawrence Currie. You almost never get a 92% ratification vote.