“Where’s the
nap room?” is the running joke over at Capital Health, as employees
scurry around the hallways and peer through doors and windows in the
faux-search for the celebrated, but elusive, “private rooms for
napping.”
The nap rooms were cited by Toronto publisher Mediacorp and
Maclean’s magazine as reason why the Capital District Health
Authority is one of “Canada’s Top 100 Employers.” Maclean’s also
mentions Cap Health’s flex time scheduling and “healthy cafeteria
food,” while Mediacorp’s more extensive list includes the employer’s
contribution to a defined benefit plan, maternity and paternity leave
top-up to 93 percent of salary and extended health coverage for retired
employees, among other benefits.
Capital Health is rightly pleased with the positive press. “I’m
thrilled that we are receiving this prestigious recognition,” crows CEO
Chris Power in a press release posted on Cap Health’s website. “Great
people work at Capital Health. We know that and now the country does
too. The award also illustrates how we are successfully reaching our
goal of being a world-leading haven of people-centred health, healing
and learning,”
Jokes about nap rooms aside, employees I’ve spoken with say the Top
Employer designation is warranted—Capital Health is indeed a decent
place to work. They like their jobs, and they like their benefits.
But, thing is, those benefits didn’t simply come from the goodness
of management’s heart.
“My biggest issue” with the designation “is that union wasn’t given
some credit for negotiating those benefits,” says Linda Power, former
executive director of the Nova Scotia Government & General
Employees Union, which represents Cap Health employees. “We haven’t
gone to the bargaining table and said, ‘Can we have this?’ and they’ve
said, ‘Oh, absolutely, because it’s good for morale.’ Rather, [these
benefits] have been hard-fought for, and even in some cases around the
bargaining table, management has come looking to claw benefits
back.”
Before the QE2 Health Sciences Centre was created in 1996 by merging
the Victoria General Hospital, the Camp Hill Medical Centre, the Nova
Scotia Rehabilitation Centre and the Nova Scotia Cancer and Research
Foundation, only the 2,600 VG employees were government employees who
received full benefits—the 4,000 employees of the other agencies
received lesser benefits.
Through the merger, management tried to force all employees off the
Public Service Superannuation Plan, the defined benefit pension plan
celebrated by Mediacorp, and into the Nova Scotia Association of Health
Organizations pension plan, a plan with much lower benefits.
NSGEU successfully fought for the right of employees to keep
their existing pension plans, including the PSSP, although new
employees are enrolled in the NSAHO as a matter of course.
Likewise, Power says that top-up pay for pregnancy, parental and
adoption leaves was particularly resisted by management, and union reps
say they’ve had to fend off repeated attempts to roll back retirement
health benefits.
“I’ve never gone to the bargaining table with Capital Health where
they’ve come to give us something,” says Power. “They come to take
away. When it comes to issues of principle—whether it’s top-up for
pregnancy, parental and adoption, or sick-leave benefits—these things
never come without a lot of contention from the other side.”
As it ever was, and ever will be.
The fundamental fact of employer-employee relations is that
employees always have to fight to get the best deal possible,
and that fight is most successfully fought collectively, with a
union.
Moreover, successful union representation is not just good for
employees—as the Top Employers designation shows, it’s also good for
management, and it’s good for the rest of us, as hard-fought for
benefits become the new standard in the community.
“I think it’s great that the benefits are there, but there’s a party
missing in the Top Employer designation, and it’s the union who
negotiated on behalf the employees,” says Power.
As for the elusive nap room, union reps speculate that highly paid
doctors might have access some perk denied the rank and file. Maybe
it’ll become a bargaining chip in the next round of negotiations.
This article appears in Nov 19-25, 2009.
NAP ROOOMS?!?! Give me a freaking break!!! Just an example of how far out in left field these unions are!! Then they have the fucking NERVE To say they want to strike for more money?!? They have the best benefits in the country!
I was there a few weeks ago in day surgery on the 5th floor. There is a room off the large recovery ward that is set up as a private room with a bed, etc, that was being used as a sleepover room by the doctors and perhaps others too. The discussion when I was there was who was going to clean it up and make the bed after some MD had spent the night there.
Maybe they are talking about the on-call room, where doctors who have been working for 24hrs straight can catch a quick cat-nap between patients. I know I would rather have my health care provider be bright-eyed and bushy tailed from getting reasonable sleep, rather than wired on caffeine or dragging their ass because they are exhausted.
Unless the hospitals change the call schedules or shift schedules to normal human working hours, I think a place to catch a nap is a necessity. People’s lives are at stake and sleepy doctors and nurses are not effective doctors and nurses. Whenever I have been in the hospital, I don’t notice a lot of staff just lounging around….running around would be more accurate.
These so-called “nap rooms” are for the scantily paid residents (doctors-in-training) that are on-call for the night. So, when they are not up caring for acutely ill patients during their ridiculously long shifts, they can catch a few z’s.
They are not exactly luxurious.
Bobby33 Take a pill man Pun intended. I have been employed at Cap Health for 30 years. The so called nap rooms are for resident doctors who work 24 hour shifts.
Any major hospital in North America have them. No other staff have access to these rooms. I can also assure you no one wants to strike. It is pretty simple here, union and management play this little dance every 3 or 4 years and it is all about give and take from both sides. They both bullshit each other to get what they want. It is called collective bargaining.
Enough of the partisan reporting.
Tim sites Chris Power as “crowing,” while Linda Power “says” things.
As “dar” says, “They both bullshit each other to get what they want. It’s called collective bargaining.”
Ultimately, the employees win, regardless of Tim’s not-so-subtle bias.
This nap room is a well deserved retreat for overworked physicians. They put up with a lot of nonsense from patients, as do nurses, which in fact put up with more crap. It isn’t glorious work I would imagine at times, especially when they make the same amount of money as a metro transit bus driver. When RN’s strike for better wages, it’s for a good reason. Don’t appreciate healthcare workers enough? Wait until you become really ill, then you will.
Then there’s the employees who use their work time to post on their blogs…