The Union of Northern Workers says collective bargaining with the NWT government is being held up by a demand that could “open the door to contracting out all of the GNWT’s 2,100 healthcare workers.”
The union gave no specifics in a bargaining update to members in late March.
The territorial government, in a statement, made no reference to any measure that would involve contracting out all healthcare positions.
Instead, the GNWT framed the issue as a concern limited to how agency nurses are used.
The NWT’s health authority has come under scrutiny for its use of agency nurses – nurses who work for private companies, are paid more than local nurses and are brought in on short-term contracts to fill gaps in the territory’s health service.
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In February, the CBC reported the territory had spent $5.2 million on agency nurses in the past year. The GNWT has said there are no alternatives in situations where nurses are needed to keep services going.
“The GNWT has contracted with agencies in very limited circumstances and only as a last resort to ensure the continuation of critical healthcare services to residents of the NWT. This practice is consistent with the collective agreement,” the NWT government’s Department of Finance said in a statement last week.
“Agency nurses are a rarely used, exception-based approach to a multi-faceted issue. Indeed, the total number of agency nurses typically make up less than 0.5 percent of the 2,100 healthcare positions in the GNWT.”
The department said the GNWT was “actively engaged in the bargaining process” and would make no further public comment about ongoing negotiations.
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The GNWT and union are using a mediator, Jacquie de Aguayo, to continue bargaining. The last collective agreement expired in March 2023, though its terms will hold until a new agreement is struck.
In its update, the union said De Aguayo has been using “shuttle diplomacy” – bringing offers and responses to and from each party, one after the other – to “break the logjam between the parties.”
The union said the GNWT would need to drop its “demands for concessions … to move forward to an agreement.”
