On May 30th, 2012, the Province officially amalgamated 11 regional health authorities (RHAs) into five new authorities. Here’s what’s been happening with regards to these mergers:
Interim Boards Appointed
The Province has appointed interim boards (along with Chief Executive Officers) to oversee the transition of each new region, which include:
•Assiniboine, Brandon and Parkland RHAs are now the Western RHA;
•Burntwood and Nor-Man are now the Northern RHA;
•Central and South Eastman are now the Southern RHA;
•Interlake and North Eastman RHAs are now the Interlake-Eastern RHA;
•Churchill RHA is now an operating division of the Winnipeg RHA.
The Province expects to have permanent RHA boards in place by the end of June, who will continue to focus on reducing the number of senior corporate positions, and further streamlining RHA administrative functions. The government continues to assure the unions involved that all front line positions will be maintained.
New RHAs leave little choice but to move forward with representation votes
With the amalgamations, several different unions will now represent employees in the same region. The government has said that, for now, they will not require these employees to amalgamate their unions as well.
Many of the other unions involved (such as the United Food and Commercial Workers, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals) have seemed prepared to take the government at their word. They want to stick with the status quo and try and make it work.
But at the MGEU, we think this strategy will only lead to us all spinning our wheels, leading us nowhere but eventual, unavoidable representation votes. We have been through this before. Eventually, it no longer makes sense to have employees with two different contracts working side-by-side. People working in the same region begin demanding the same contracts. Sooner or later, members will have to choose ? and experience tells us that sooner is better, avoiding months, or even years, of confusion and disparity.
MGEU Board unanimously votes in favour of triggering votes
On May 31, 2012, the MGEU Board of Directors voted unanimously in favour of approaching the Manitoba Labour Board to trigger representation votes in each of the three regions where MGEU has a stake, namely the Western, Southern, and Interlake-Eastern RHAs.
They did this knowing full well that the MGEU currently has fewer members than other unions in nearly every region. They understand that the MGEU has a lot to lose in asking members to choose right now. But they feel strongly that the status quo is not an option because:
1.With an eventual vote hanging over every union’s and the government’s heads, this current round of negotiations would be compromised. No matter how much we tried to pretend it didn’t matter, each union would inevitably be played off one another.
2.MGEU Health Care Support Services and TPP members in the affected regions have too much to lose with their current contract. The union wants to do everything it can to make sure its members stay MGEU members and retain everything they’ve worked so hard to gain through negotiations.
Votes to take place over the next couple of months
The Manitoba Labour Board is responsible for setting the voting schedules, but it’s our hope that the process will be completed by the fall.
We are now in the process of determining which region will be the first to vote (this will probably take place early in the summer). As new information arises, the union will post updates here at mgeu.ca and email/mail updates to members.
In the mean time, any member affected by these mergers is encouraged to contact the MGEU Resource Centre if they have a question or want to update their contact info to ensure they receive the latest updates. Members can also use the Member Info Update page.