What about the Community Health Services EBA?
For the first time, we have to negotiate a separate agreement for community health services. This new agreement will only apply to CHSs which are run by independent boards. Those which are part of a public hospital network will continue to be covered by the public sector agreement.
We have ensured however that community health services will retain parity of salaries and conditions with the public sector and that future negotiations will occur jointly with those in the public sector.
The parties have therefore agreed that this new agreement will “mirror” the public sector agreement; only clauses and classifications which don’t apply to community health services will be deleted or changed. Protracted negotiations should therefore not be necessary and we are hopeful of a speedy outcome.
We provided the VHIA with a summary document on 23 April 2013 and are still waiting for a response.
