APL Bargaining Update #5

Bargaining updates

Your Bargaining Committee met with APL on February 4 and 5 for negotiations. While our first day of discussions was productive—resulting in signoffs on multiple articles and Letters of Understanding (LOUs), including some with improvements—the second day presented challenges.

That said, we are pleased to share some progress from this session. We signed off on several articles and LOUs of our collective agreement, with improvements:

We signed off on the following items on February 4:

Articles Signed Off: 

  • Article 36 – Evaluation, Personnel Files, and Employee Health Files (with improvements)
  • Article 46 – Grievance Procedure (with improvements)

LOUs Signed Off: 

  • LOU #1 – Job Sharing (renewed with no changes)
  • LOU #4 – Joint Committee (renewed with no changes)
  • LOU #9 – Increase/Decrease FTE (with improvements)
  • LOU #9 – Increase/Decrease FTE (with improvements)
  • LOU #20 – Legacy Qualification Differentials (renewed with no changes)
  • LOU #21 – Revised Grievance Arbitration Process (renewed with no changes)
  • LOU – Medical Laboratory Assistants Equivalency (signed with improvements)

APL returned to our negotiations on February 5 with a completely different approach, refusing to discuss the remainder of our non-monetary proposals. Despite our committee’s best efforts and arguments, APL was disinterested in engaging in further discussion and gave a very clear answer to each item presented – no and not needed. Our offer to give APL time to reconsider this position was also declined.  

As a result, negotiations on non-monetary matters are currently on pause. However, we remain committed to these important proposals and will keep them on the table.  

In order to continue negotiations, your committee has decided to focus the next round of discussions scheduled on February 25 and 26 on initial monetary discussions. This approach will allow further negotiations to proceed while still leaving the door open for us to return to non-monetary proposals at a later time.

We remain committed to advancing these negotiations as quickly as possible to achieve an agreement that meets the needs and expectations of our membership. 

If you have questions about your union’s approach to bargaining, you can access a general FAQ page. For further questions or feedback, please email aplbargaining@hsaa.ca.

In solidarity,

Your APL Bargaining Team

Laurie Brassard, Laboratory Technologist, UAH, Edmonton (Chair, HSAA Board Member)
Lisa Constantini, MLA, PSC, Calgary (HSAA Board Member)
Ayed Saad, Laboratory Technologist, FMC, Calgary
Evan Zinyk, MLA, Base Lab, Edmonton
Georgianna Renkas, Laboratory Technologist, FMC, Calgary
Katie Hudson, Combined Lab & X-Ray Technologist, Fox Creek
Bailey-Rae Church, MLA, PSC, Red Deer
Chris Bradshaw, HSAA Labour Relations Officer (Lead Spokesperson)
Tammy Milliken, HSAA Labour Relations Officer, (Spokesperson)