Common use of Agency Nurses Clause in Contracts

Agency Nurses. In my view, no demonstrated need existed for the “clarity note” the Chair has decided to issue. The evidence was that in the last fiscal year that ended March 31, 2020, only 35 of the Participating Hospitals used agency nurses. 96 did not use agency nurses at all. Of the 35 Hospitals that did use agency nurses, it appears that ONA ‘s concerns were with 10 hospitals (9 of which were in the GTA) although the 10th ranking hospital in terms of actual agency hours utilized is really not that high compared to the others in the group and probably isn’t much, if any, of a concern. The Chair points out in paragraph 42 of his award that the dispute relating to the use of agency nurses has been ongoing since 2003. He points to an award of Arbitrator Xxxxxx in 2003 that said that the use of agency nurses was only permitted on an ad hoc basis. Xx. Xxxxxx also imposed a threshold limit for ad hoc agency use with a financial penalty for usage over the threshold. The penalty for usage over the threshold was increased from 38 cents per hour to 62 cents per hour in an interest arbitration award of a Board chaired by Arbitrator Albertyn between these parties on September 7, 2016.That same Board also lowered the threshold for usage to 1.5% from 2%. Despite XXX’s concerns about the use of agency nurses, they don’t appear to have done much about it. The Chair points out that he has dealt with 3 rights arbitration cases involving what he referred to as excessive use of agency nurses at GTA hospitals. We know that one of the Hospitals was Humber River because an award was issued in 2019 . The Chair summarizes that case at paragraph 44 of his award. I have read the award (which was put before us) and it is very comprehensive. It sets out in plain language what the hospital did wrong and what it should have done and what it should be doing in future. The other 2 agency nurses cases that the Chair had before him were settled. Other than the Humber award there have been no arbitration awards involving the agency nurses language in the collective agreement since the Xxxxxx award in 2003 Before our Board ONA sought to have awarded a proposal that would entirely eliminate the use of agency nurses. The Chair rightly, in my view, found that such a proposal went too far and he rejected it. But then he comes up with a clarity note and awards it. I fail to see why this is needed let alone justified. XXX doesn’t appear to be having any problems with 121 out of the 131 Participating Hospitals. As for the others, the Humber decision has articulated a clear roadmap as to what can be done and what can’t be done. If ONA feels that a Hospital has violated the collective agreement then it can file a grievance and if they prove their allegations they will be entitled to appropriate remedies which is what happened at Humber. Finally, even though we had evidence before us concerning the number of hours that agency nurses worked at Hospitals in the last fiscal year, there was no evidence put before us regarding the circumstances and context of that work. Hence no conclusions could be drawn as to whether some or all or none of that usage violated the agreement.