In late February, our Provincial Collective Bargaining Committee (PCBC) met with the Provincial Health Labour Relations Secretariat (PHLRS) to begin negotiations for a new Central Table collective agreement.
Bargaining is ongoing with additional dates scheduled for mid-April. PCBC continues to strive for a timely deal that reflects true value and respect for nurses. Once we have further updates, we will share them.
Related to bargaining, a quick reminder to encourage your MNU colleagues to make sure their contact information is up to date in our files. As in years past, MNU will NOT be sending bargaining information to any Employer emails.
In my public comments to the media and at the many Worksite/Local AGMs that I’ve attended these last weeks, I’ve spoken about the need to retain the nurses that we have in our public healthcare system already.
Recently, Dr. Leigh Chapman, who was appointed as Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) by the Government of Canada in August of 2022, presented Canada’s Nursing Retention Toolkit, which focuses on eight core themes that impact a nurses’ day-to-day working life, with accompanying initiatives that can be used as a guide for employers and organizations to implement strategies that target retention.
This 75-page Nursing retention toolkit: Improving the working lives of nurses in Canada is available on the Government of Canada’s Health Workforce website for all to read.
The federal government states in the executive summary that implementation of retention strategies is fundamental to assist in bolstering the nursing workforce in Canada. They added: “There are many initiatives underway across Canada to support nursing retention. The toolkit provides a framework that can be utilized as a key resource for employers and organizations to enhance the current working conditions of nurses and outlines many of the initiatives.”
If you have any feedback on the toolkit, please send an email to comms@manitobanurses.ca.
And finally, I’d like to pay tribute to Scott Wright, who did the legal work when nurses first organized and formed the Manitoba Organization of Nurses’ Association (MONA) back in the 1970s, later becoming MNU.
Scott died in Ottawa on Tuesday, February 27, 2024, after a short period of illness. Although he was elevated to the Bench (and was a neutral decision maker there), he always remained interested in the activity in Manitoba’s unionized sector including, of course, the nurses. Read more about his exceptional life in this obituary.
It’s also interesting to note that Scott was assisted by a young lawyer named Richard Deeley, who became MNU’s dedicated counsel for several decades.
Our deepest condolences to Scott’s family, colleagues and friends.