President's Message

A TENTATIVE DEAL REACHED 

On behalf of the NBA provincial bargaining committee and BCNU council, I am pleased to present the details of the proposed 2025-2029 NBA collective agreement. 

I want to begin by recognizing the bargaining committee – working nurses elected by their peers – who brought frontline experience, persistence and professionalism to the table throughout this process. Their work was grounded in what nurses are experiencing every day in BC’s health-care system, and I want to sincerely thank them for their commitment. 

This tentative contract is a testament to BCNU members’ solidarity and the unwavering commitment they have shown each other over the past year. In a challenging bargaining environment, you helped push negotiations further than many thought possible, and we’ve now made important progress in tackling the issues nurses have been raising for years across our health-care system. 

This is a contract that belongs to you. 

When more than 50,000 members delivered a historic 98.2 % strike vote mandate, health employers received a clear message that nurses are united and not willing to take less than other bargaining associations. It was a powerful recognition of nurses’ frustration, and we showed we were not backing down until we got the respect – and the contract – we deserved. 

When we declared an impasse at the bargaining table and called for a strike vote, it was because the employer was not moving on key issues members raised throughout our engagement process. They were not offering nurses access to Enhanced Mandate funding (1.6 percent, or approximately $104 million in ongoing annual funding). They refused to meaningfully negotiate benefits or increase the cap on massage therapy imposed by Arbitrator Vince Ready and had only agreed to four of the 140 proposals and counter-proposals tabled by the NBA. 

We achieved gains beyond the arbitrated cap on the massage therapy benefit imposed by the Vince Ready decision, including significant improvements to other paramedical benefits such as vision care and mental health supports – members’ top bargaining priority according to our surveys and bargaining conferences.We secured access to hundreds of millions of dollars of enhanced mandate funding, in addition to the government’s general wage increase of 12 percent over four years. And we bargained workplace safety, violence prevention measures and other provisions to address the working conditions nurses identified throughout bargaining. 

We also negotiated an agreement with the Ministry of Health to secure significant additional funding to continue implementing minimum nurse-to-patient ratios. This includes new accountability measures requiring that any funding not used directly for ratios implementation be reinvested into initiatives in support of minimum nurse-to-patient ratios and frontline nursing care. The Ministry will also begin providing quarterly expenditure reporting and annual public reporting to support transparency and accountability. 

This contract will only be ratified if a majority of members cast ballots in favour. There is a lot of information to digest. Please access the ratification booklet via the BCNU Connect app and on the BCNU Member Portal, where you will find a detailed summary of the contract improvements, proposed updates and changes to existing collective agreement language. 

Your bargaining committee is also hosting a series of hybrid ratification townhalls, both in-person and virtual, for members across the province. Please attend one of these sessions to hear directly from the committee, review the tentative agreement in more detail and ask questions ahead of the ratification vote, which will take place June 15–19. 

Visit the BCNU Events Calendar for ratification townhall dates, registration details and additional information.

Email us at ratification@bcnu.org if you have any questions about the process.  

I want to thank all of those members who stayed informed, attended bargaining and strike vote information sessions, educated coworkers, participated in the strike vote and helped your bargaining committee reach a tentative agreement it is proud to endorse.  

In solidarity,

Adriane Gear
President, BC Nurses' Union