B.C. nurses escalate job action with picket line at Vancouver General Hospital

B.C.’s nurses hit the picket lines at Vancouver General Hospital shortly after dawn on Tuesday, which is the first time they’ve done so in the province since 1989.

“It’s historic; certainly there is a lot of jubilation. I think nurses are feeling very inspired by the support but, at the same time, this is a solemn day, that nurses have to be on the picket line instead of at a bedside with a patient,” Adrienne Gear, president of the BC Nurses’ Union, said at a rally.

The BC Nurses’ Union began job action last Thursday after two-thirds voted to reject a deal with the B.C. Health Employers Association.

The deal included a 12-per cent wage increase over four years, improved benefits, additional funding for minimum nurse-to-patient ratios and improved violence prevention measures.

But experts say the B.C. government finds itself in a difficult spot.

“That’s the real constraint on the government,” Hamish Telford, a political science professor at the University of the Fraser Valley, said.

“I’m sure they’d love to give nurses a better deal, but if they do, they have to give everyone the same deal, at least on wages, and the money just isn’t there.”

Nurses now plan to expand picket lines, including to Surrey Memorial Hospital on Thursday, due to what they say is employer intimidation

“Nurses have come forward to say they are being threatened with discipline, warned their professional licences could be at risk and pressured to perform non-nursing duties or work unauthorized overtime despite the union’s lawful job action directives,” the union said in a release on Tuesday morning.

The Hospital Employers Association says maintaining safe patient care is key and denies the accusation.

“Employers are not directing employees to perform work outside their role, qualifications, professional scope, or collective agreement obligations,” the organization states.

“Health care is in crisis; nurses have been using their voice, they’ve been raising concerns for years and nobody is listening, and now the nurses of B.C. are on a picket line. Like, what’s it going to take to wake up, people,” Gear said at the rally.

Contract talks between the two sides have resumed.

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