By Isaac Phan Nay | The Tyee
A group of B.C. nurses have lost another round in their long battle against job losses for not getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
The 83 nurses went to the BC Labour Relations Board to argue the BC Nurses’ Union had failed to fulfil its legal duty to represent them.
The nurses wanted the union to take their firing grievances to arbitration. Instead the BCNU negotiated a settlement with the Interior Health Authority, which gave fired nurses the right to be rehired if the vaccination requirement was lifted. That happened in July.
But the labour board decision rejected the nurses’ argument and said the union had the right to decide on a negotiated settlement and acted in the best interest of its approximately 48,000 members.
“Those decisions are not up to the individual employee and they do not have a veto over whether the grievance should be settled,” board associate chair Andres Barker wrote in a Dec. 30 decision.
Corrine Mori, one of the nurses, said she felt betrayed.
“It was the union’s responsibility to defend us,” she said. “It did not.” The settlement did not do enough to address the challenges unvaccinated nurses faced during three years without work, she said.
The union told The Tyee in an emailed statement it pushed for accommodations for nurses who were not vaccinated, including options like remote work and the use of personal protective equipment.
“The union continues to work hard on behalf of members impacted by the vaccine mandate,” it said.
In October 2021, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry ordered health-care workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to stop its spread.
Some refused and nurses filed hundreds of grievances over the policy, the BC Nurses’ Union said in a press release.
According to labour board documents, the union challenged the Interior Health Authority in 2023 over the vaccination policy.
Last May the union reached a consent award, or an agreement, at the board to resolve the grievances.
But 83 nurses were not happy with the settlement. They said the union did not share information about the legal battle, they were not allowed to attend arbitration and they were blindsided by the settlement.
The group of nurses told the labour board the settlement is not an adequate solution to their grievance and suggested the union breached Section 12 of the B.C. Labour Relations Code, which bars unions from acting in bad faith or in arbitrary or discriminatory ways.
“The unfortunate and disastrous reality is that some B.C. nurses have been coerced into compromising their ethical standards in order to maintain employment,” they said in the complaint to the board. “Due to government mandates forcing medical injections in order to be employed, nurses experienced immense distress in the form of personal discrimination and employer abuse.”
But while the board recognized in its decision the nurses had an ethical disagreement over the settlement, it said the group could not prove the union had acted in bad faith or discriminatory ways.
For Mori, the decision was a loss.
“B.C. nurses have been discovering over the last few years that both our employment conditions and our protections that should be available to us are not enforced,” she said. “The labour board has washed its hands and walked away.”
