A new collective agreement has been ratified by the unions representing some Yukon hospital workers and approved by the Yukon Hospital Corporation.
In an April 11 email to the News, hospital corporation spokesperson Jessica Apolloni confirmed that the board approved the deal.
“Our next steps are to [begin] implementing the new collective agreement,” she said.
The collective agreement affects a few hundred members of the Yukon Employees’ Union (YEU) and Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) Local Y025. That includes administrative, custodial, lab, imaging and food services staff, licensed practical nurses and others.
Late last week, some unionized hospital workers in the Yukon voted in favour of ratifying the deal, according to YEU president Justin Lemphers. Then those votes were tallied. PSAC has a policy against sharing the vote results by numbers, per Lemphers.
Lemphers said it was up to the hospital corporation to accept or reject the deal, which expired in late 2022.
“It would be quite unexpected if the hospital corporation did not sign off on their side because both parties were recommending the agreement to the parties. So, our bargaining team recommended to the employees and their bargaining team recommends to the hospital corporation,” he said.
Shortly after some unionized hospital workers voted in favour of a strike mandate earlier this year, a provisional deal was reached with the hospital corporation.
The YEU and the PSAC local cited the recent strike vote for the move forward in negotiations toward a tentative agreement.
Late in March, the bargaining team representing impacted hospital workers held off on planned ratification meetings because information came to memberships’ attention around potential changes to pension management for hospital employees, Lemphers said.
He noted those concerns were put to rest, and the delayed ratification vote went ahead after signing a letter of agreement with the hospital corporation.
Contact Dana Hatherly at dana.hatherly@yukon-news.com