QUESTION:
What is the BC conservatives stand on the issues the BC Nurses Union faces in the province, and in general what is their stand on unions. I am little concerned about the potential for union busting as a means to cut wages so that corporations can save money. Given I am a female in a predominately female profession if it weren't for the union I do not think I would be making the wage I am able to make now.
RESPONSE:As John Cummins pointed out at the budget unveiling, we're not interested in creating labour strife.
We're more interested in the fact that block funding has created a bureaucratic nightmare. In Interior Health alone there are over 2500 directors and managers. There's a manager of this and a director of that and an overseer of some sort for pretty much everything (recalling Monty Python's Minister of Silly Walks). The support structures build around that top-heavy bureaucracy are groaning with overstaffing. Almost half of them make over $100,000, in a geographical area in which the median income is around one third of that.
That's sucking money away from the front lines and we don't think it's right. That's where we're interested in streamlining. There are other associated problems with management that we're going to be looking into as well. It is not the frontlines we're interested in ... that actually has to be strengthened.
Now I actually did some research on staffing, with the Interior Health Authority, and here is what I found. There is a 9 person Senior Executive team which is responsible for day-to-day operations and management ... plus a member Board of Directors ... plus 2,500 Directors and Manager.
Total administration and management = 2,518 ... and that is for approximately 18,500 employees / staff.
I'm not saying the answer is "No", however do we really need to have one management / administration person for every 6.3 employees?
Salaries, of course, take up a huge bite from the health care budget -- including management. It's difficult to find information, however in a story from the Kamloops Daily News, in January of last year, it noted the following:
Top staff at IHA (all figures exclude pension amounts)
- Chief Executive Director ... in 2010/11, his new position boosted his pay to $346,014, up 18 per cent from his old pay rate.
