The Facilities Bargaining Association (FBA), which represents approximately 67,500 people delivering health services throughout B.C., has ratified a new agreement reached with Health Employers Association of BC (HEABC).

This diverse bargaining unit includes hundreds of skilled health-care occupations, including care aides, lab assistants, health records clerks, dietary and cleaning staff, nursing unit assistants, and trades and maintenance workers.  The nine-union FBA is led by the Hospital Employees’ Union, which represents about 95% of health-care workers covered by the agreement.

Highlights of some terms and conditions negotiated in this agreement include increases to shift premiums, a new memorandum of agreement that will bring eligible care-home operators to HEABC membership that ensures workers are covered by an HEABC-negotiated collective agreement, and two new health and safety provisions. These changes will help improve and maintain stable service delivery throughout the province.

The FBA agreement has the same four-year term and annual 3% general wage increases that also apply across the broader provincial public-sector negotiations as part of the 2025 Balanced Measures Mandate. FBA workers will also receive wage comparability adjustments in response to the 15% wage cuts made in 2004. These are additional increases that are over and above what will be made available to the rest of the public sector as part of the 2025 Balanced Measures Mandate.

The FBA is one of four tables chosen to receive enhanced mandates to address unique challenges threatening critical-service delivery and act on government’s key priorities in this round of bargaining. Since 2014, enhanced mandates in the form of low-wage redress have been provided at the community health and community social services tables.  In addition to these two low-wage-redress mandates, government has extended enhanced mandates in this round to the FBA and the BCGEU Main Agreement in response to the increasing affordability and labour market pressures facing those tables.

Negotiations under the 2025 Balanced Measures Mandate support government’s key priorities to protect and strengthen critical services in B.C.’s public sector, to maintain labour stability in a complex round of bargaining and to support the Province’s efforts to find operational efficiencies that preserve front-line services.

Learn More:

• To learn more about public-sector bargaining in B.C., visit: https://gov.bc.ca/psecbargaining