What is Central Bargaining?
The Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) is funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health to bargain provincially with the major unions in the hospital sector: the Ontario Nurses Association, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Service Employees International Union and the Ontario Public Sector Employees Union.
Bargaining unit of each union and their respective employers can choose to bargain provincially at a single table. For CUPE, approximately 25,000 employees at 65 hospitals across the province are included in negotiations of three master collective agreements: one for combined full and part time units, one for full time employees only and one for part time only units.
There are only four CUPE organized work places which do not participate in central bargaining with the Ontario Hospital Association and three of these units follow the central settlement.
Hospital employers and local union representatives elect central bargaining teams, which conduct the negotiations. CUPE units have the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions as the bargaining agent in negotiations.
The first step in negotiations is to agree on a Memorandum of Conditions for Joint Bargaining. This Memorandum outlines the timetable for central and local negotiations, identifies the issues that are to be bargained provincially and locally, distinguishes the units and employers who are participating and indicates how unresolved issues will be dealt with.
Following the development of this Memorandum of Conditions, bargaining proposals are then exchanged face-to-face. Unresolved issues are usually referred to arbitration, by an independent third party.