Sure.
I would say that one of the key differences—because I am in regular contact with colleagues across the country from CUPE—is that our effort has been fairly well coordinated, considering, with a few glitches. I couldn't say that about the other provinces. It involved a very strong consultation with labour unions.
We were in from the ground. We established a set of principles that would be applied to how workers would be allocated to different sites. Employers and unions essentially negotiated a labour adjustment process, and then that was turned into a ministerial order to ensure that all operators—not just the public facilities but the privates—would be included as well. It applies to long-term care, assisted living and mental health facilities.
There is a situation that Ms. Vyce described of workers sometimes holding two and three jobs in long-term care. Of course, it's true in B.C. as well. We're also trying to avoid the unintentional cross-contamination that might come with that, which is the intention of the orders. Long-term care workers, assisted living and mental health facility workers are prevented from holding another job within those facilities, but they can hold one in acute care or community care. They're not prevented from earning their income in that sense.
There is some protection with respect to seniority in terms of scheduling of hours, protection of benefits, which come from one of the set of orders as well. The key, of course, is that we achieve wage parity, so you're not penalized in having to stay at one site when you've normally been able to work a second site. You will get something comparable to the total hours that you held in both sites.
In the SARS crisis in Ontario in particular, there was a very clear exodus of nursing staff from the lower-paying employers to the higher-paying employers. Agency staff—surprisingly, to me—were some of the highest paid, and they were moving between sites. In B.C., agency staff are not excluded from the orders. However, with that pattern in Ontario during SARS, it was very clear that some facilities that weren't paying as well were very short-staffed.
With the levelling up of wages, there is no disparity that way; it's all the same no matter where you go. They've done a fairly coordinated effort with these three sets of orders, which work in tandem. They work to lay out principles on how staff are going to be allocated. They also get into the logistics of allocation instead of saying, “Go ahead, folks, try...”, because that hasn't fared well in the other provinces; it hasn't materialized.
However, in B.C., it's going relatively smoothly. It's a very clear process with the health authorities. There is a set of lists from employers within the health authority that are given to the chief medical officer, who then sets ultimate approval as to staff assignment. Workers' collective agreements aren't thrown out the window, so they're relatively content and satisfied with the situation.
Ironically, now we're in the situation where there is parity and people are receiving this public sector standard that we had in 2001. Virtually all care aids in long-term care made the same wage.
It's certainly something that we think is critical to stabilizing the sector. There has to be wage stability. There has to be a common standard set. It's the only way you're not going to end up with that misallocation and this big disparity.
Our members and the workers deserve it, frankly. I mean we're calling them heroes at this point. We have to put our money where our mouths are.