Local 97 General Meeting – October 6, 2006

R. A. Steen

1700-19:00

1. Meeting was called to order by D. Thompson at 17:15

2. Attendance sheet attached

3. D. Thompson indicates Master Rotation Review is scheduled for October 27. D. Thompson discussed the history of the master rotations and how Leona Barrett made the master rotation based on what was given to the union by the employer.

4. Introductions of executive and Deb Stewart the new Labour Relations Officer (LRO)

5. Question and Answer Period

Nurse: Why do we have a six week master rotation but only know our schedule one week ahead of time?

Deb: Maintains Dawn laid groundwork with the employer to have Article 15 modified.

Dawn: Employer was put on notice that the collective agreement needs to be modified.

Nurse: Why was the master rotation started in the summer as summer is a bad time for the master rotation to be evaluated?

Dawn: It needed to be started as soon as possible.

Nurse: Will daily planning solve the “Left In” concerns?

Dawn: Daily planning is not a union issue. Under Article 4 the employer has the right to have daily planning. Individual nurses need to make daily planning work for them.

Nurse: Maintains she is very unhappy with daily planning. She maintains she is impressed with the meetings with management however nurse’s suggestions have not been followed up on. Weekly visits are not being prioritized and the PN’s are not seeing their clients for weeks on end.

Dawn: If weekly visits are missing nurses should talk to their Scheduling Clerks or trade with other nurses to maintain continuity of care.

Nurse: Maintains they were told by management not to talk to their Scheduling Clerks. Nurses need to talk to their NRC’s. Nurses have difficulty trading visits during planning times.

Dawn: Maintains their area should have a meeting with the Team Manager.

Nurse: Maintains Dawn promised her that a meeting would be arranged.

Dawn: Maintains that Marlene McNickle the Team Manager for River East/Transcona was given an email that the River East Nurses would contact her to schedule a meeting. Dawn maintains she would be present if invited. No nurses took the initiative to schedule a meeting.

Chris: Maintains Due Diligence is a process. Discussion ensued with Chris and Dawn re: empowerment. Chris maintains nurses need to fill out Work Load Staffing Reports, Occurrence Reports and issues will be discussed at NAC.

Nurse: Can Master Rotations be changed, as one was?

Dawn: Human Resources looked into the particular case where a master rotation was changed and it was dealt with.

Nurse: Maintains that LPN’s have no case load reviews. LPN’s want to work every third weekend. Alison mentioned that there was a nurse who couldn't work 7 days straight as her master rotation was 7-5-7 and this nurse found she couldn't keep up with this and so she left to take a term elsewhere.

Alison also maintains she feels master rotation are not spread out evenly with the hours worked.   There were nurses who work 7on, 2 off and 7on (7-2-7). These issues should be taken into account during master rotation review.

Deb: Article 1504 – Modifications can occur with meaningful input – the nurse could have a singe day off instead of 2 days off or have split days off. However there is always a trait off.

Nurse: There is anxiety associated with evenings especially when you don’t know when you are working.

Dawn/Chris: It is managements right to give the nurse one week notice. Nothing has changed since the implementation of the master rotations. Dawn maintains that since the employer does not have evenings built into the master rotation individual nurses need to keep tract and notify the union if the shifts are not being scheduled in a fair and equitable manner.

Nurse: Were the IV nurses and Palliative nurses taken into account with the numbers of nurses available nurses to work on the rotation?  

Dawn: IV and Palliative nurses have master rotations but when doing the rotations, they were done by Leona with close consultation with Barb K. and Christine N. Those programs needs were taken into consideration without lumping them in with the regular Visiting Nurses. If the nurse’s days are not filled with IV/Palliative visits, then they will be used to help out district nurses.

Deb: Discussed how recognized holidays should be worked this is if the nurse is working the weekend they work the Stat. If the nurse is off the weekend they should be off the Stat. If you are scheduled the stat and do not want to work the nurse is encouraged to talk to their supervisor and take accountability by asking for particular stats off.

Chris: The individual nurse has to make sure that the supervisor ensures the stats are distributed in a fair and equitable manner.

Nurse: Maintains she is unhappy that LPN’s have to work every second weekend. She maintains August was too busy and she feels pressure on the weekends due to high amounts of morning visits.

Dawn: Advises Marie to fill out a Work Load Staffing Report.

Maintains that from a union perspective all nurses should be equal in regards to the weekends. The employer would not allow the LPN’s to be scheduled to work every third weekend.

Deb: Discussed Secondment/Floating should be used for unforeseen staffing shortages. An unfilled vacancy is not an unforeseen staffing shortage. A sick call would be an unforeseen staffing shortage. Deb maintains a nurse who is scheduled to work in a certain area and then is floated to another area needs to write up a Workload Staffing Report due to the fact that the nurse needs to know why they were moved and who took over their clients in the area where they were floated from. The Workload Staffing Reports need to be tracked and discussed at NAC. Deb indicates there should be education for the employer re: secondment. The home care language in the collective agreement needs to be adjusted. Deb indicates that a city float or regional float could be implemented to decrease need for agency nurses.

Nurse: Has concerns with her LPN master rotation that is, two many seven days weeks in a row.

Dawn: Maintains she will look into the LPN master rotation.

Nurse: Why doesn’t the employer have a bed formula/baseline staffing formula like the hospital has?

Dawn: Maintains the employer was asked about baseline staffing criteria for the master rotation. The employer had no idea. Leona did a favour for the home care nursing unit regarding master rotations.

Dawn: Indicates that After Hours Central Work Place Health and Safety and NAC will be looking into the After Hours concerns. Nurses are to fax complaints to the union. Dawn maintains the Working Alone Program is not working well. Diane Gantzel is looking into this.

Nurse: Maintains she wants input into which stats she is working.

Deb: Discussion ensued re individual nurses need to take accountability and ask the supervisors for Stat preferences.

Nurse: Asks about future contract negotiations and concerns who does she talk to?

Dawn: Maintains the union members will be informed and meetings will be scheduled to involve members.

Chris: Maintains that nurses need to read their Collective Agreements and help the union members change the language to alternatives that work for both parties.

Nurse: If a nurse wants to work OT in another area than their own how do they know if OT is available?

Dawn: The employer pages out OT to the area nurses. The agency nurses are often called next as Agency nurses are cheaper than paying a nurse OT. The office may page out the OT to other areas.

Nurse: Asks if there is Mandatory OT in our contract?

Deb: Maintains that the collective agreement doesn’t have language that states OT is voluntary therego home care does have mandatory OT,

Chris: Maintains that the employer would not likely schedule mandatory OT because Home Care has the ability to cancel visits.

Nurse: What should clinic staff do in regards to switching Stats since the amount of staff in the clinics is low and the shift changing nurse needs to be qualified?

Dawn: Will discuss concerns at NAC.

Nurse: Should schedules be up first thing on Friday morning?

Dawn: Yes they should.

Nurse: The clinic times have been changed to 20 minutes per client. This is often not enough time to do the nursing care.

Dawn: This can be discussed later. The nurses need to fill out Workload Staffing Reports.

6. Meeting Adjourned at 1900 hours