Two Alberta unions are raising alarm about public health inspectors and the terms of their transition as employees of Alberta Health Services to the provincial government.
The Alberta government, as part of its health-care reform, passed legislation last year to move inspectors from the provincial health-care agency to the health ministry. As a result, their union would also change, from the Health Services Association of Alberta (HSAA) to the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE).
The government and AUPE are currently negotiating a transfer agreement. The union says the government has denied its request to ensure these workers maintain their compensation and benefits — that the HSAA had negotiated — through the transition.
“The fight that we’re trying to wage is to ensure that people are not negatively impacted because of political decisions that we have no control over,” AUPE president Sandra Azocar told CBC News.
Public health inspectors do things like risk assessments, investigate communicable diseases, and examine environments where people could be exposed to, for example, bacteria or disease that can lead to illness, such as restaurants, child-care centres and continuing-care facilities.
According to an AUPE news release issued Friday, the transition from AHS affects 336 inspectors, plus 76 other AUPE members currently working for the agency.
The government has set a negotiating deadline of June 17 and plans to start the transition at the end of July, regardless of whether a deal is reached, according to an AUPE news release issued Thursday.
Without a deal, both unions worry that workers would technically be laid off by AHS and hired by the government as new employees, thus losing their current packages.
The HSAA was unable to accommodate an interview between CBC News and its president, Leanne Alfaro. However, in a video statement the union shared publicly, Alfaro noted the union had renegotiated the employment contract for its public health members in November, so it’s worried the transitioning workers could lose that compensation.
“Workers should not lose because of a decision by the government,” Alfaro said in her statement.
According to the AUPE, the provincial government presented the union with a letter of understanding this week, proposing terms for the transfer. (CBC)
Both unions publicly shared a letter of understanding that, according to the AUPE, the government presented to union earlier this week, proposing terms for the transfer.
According to the document, dated June 10, the government would make conditional job offers to the affected workers — and “to the extent possible,” those positions will be “in the city where they currently work.”
The letter lists job classification equivalents between AHS and the Government and Alberta. Anyone who disagrees with the classification in their job offer has a window of time to object — and if a review leads to a higher job band, that would be retroactive to the employee’s start date, the letter says.
Salaries would be based on the workers’ pay within AHS — and wouldn’t decrease, the letter says.
According to the letter, people would maintain seniority if there’s no break in service. Their AHS benefits would last through their final calendar month with the agency, and government benefits would kick in at the beginning of the pay period that follows their start date.
According to a Primary and Preventative Health Services Ministry spokesperson, no one will be laid off as a result of the transition.
“Our goal is to ensure affected employees are treated fairly and respectfully throughout the process while maintaining uninterrupted public health services that Albertans rely on,” the spokesperson told CBC News in an emailed statement.
“Public health inspection services, outbreak investigations, enforcement activities, and other public health protections will continue without interruption before, during, and after the transition.”
The spokesperson said the ministry won’t comment further, as negotiations continue.
Premier Danielle Smith said during her provincial call-in radio show Saturday that the government’s intention is not to cut the number of inspectors, nor relocate people from their communities.
“The intention is to make acute care and hospital services only do acute care and hospital services,” Smith said.
She was responding to a caller who identified herself as a health inspector in rural Alberta, who was worried about being required to relocate.
“Public health inspectors, by definition, don’t work in a hospital and don’t perform surgeries, so they’re in the wrong department. So we’re trying to align all of the things that go into preventative and community health services in a different department,” Smith said.
The premier promised to bring the caller’s concerns to Primary and Preventative Health Services Minister Justin Wright. She said it was the first time she had heard concerns about job security, as it pertains to this transition.