In late January FBA representatives, health employers and government formed a working group to begin a wage comparability review, as negotiated in the 2022-2025 Facilities Bargaining Association (FBA) collective agreement.
Specifically, the working group is making recommendations to government in advance of the next round of bargaining to address wage comparability issues, following its review of the impact of the 2004 BC Liberal wage cuts and their impact on previous pay equity adjustments.
In addition, the group was also tasked with allocating interim annual ongoing funds over the next two years to boost the wage rates of lower wage rated classifications for Facilities members.
However, the work to finalize this year’s wage increase has stalled because health employers have failed to provide vital employee data needed to correctly calculate the allocation.
The HEU’s representatives on the working group requested this data in April from the Health Employers Association of BC and followed up with repeated requests in the months to follow, but no data has been provided to date.
I know this is very disappointing news for HEU members, particularly FBA workers working in lower-wage rated classifications, who were anticipating the allocation of the fund as early as April 1, when the first phase of $10.64 million in wage increases was expected to take effect.
Moving forward, we continue to press HEABC to act in good faith and release the information the working group needs to make the best decisions on how to distribute the funding. Moreover, we are looking at other measures to overcome this impasse with the employers. Once the working group has received the employer’s data and can finalize the fund allocation, members receiving a wage increase will see their pay adjusted retroactively to April 1, 2023.
It’s been 19 years since the devastating BC Liberal rollbacks to Facilities members that wiped out decades of progress toward achieving pay equity. And while this first step in the road to reversing the deep damage done is temporarily delayed, your union is firmly committed to righting these past injustices HEU members experienced.
If you have any additional questions, please contact your HEU staff representative.