The Hospital Employee’s Union has filed legal action against the B.C. Nurses’ Union.

Margi Blamey, an HEU spokeswoman, said the action was taken in response to BCNU’s offer of associate memberships to licensed practical nurses and other health care workers currently represented by HEU. The action is to safeguard HEU’s contractual rights to those members, she said.

Gary Fane, BCNU executive director of negotiation and strategic planning, said HEU’s claim has no substance.

“Their lawsuit is bogus. It’s a legal attempt to deny their members to leave,” he said. “The legal action is a ruse for the HEU to attempt to stop their members having a vote.”

Blamey said the HEU, which represents about 5,000 LPNs, has a legal and contractual obligation to represent members in the collective agreement that set out wages, benefits and other employment conditions. The union says the larger BCNU is interfering with those obligations.

“We haven’t interfered with anything,” said Fane. “The problem is they have a number of their own members calling us to join the nurses’ union.”

The BCNU has been signing up associate members since early May. At that time, HEU said its membership was being raided and filed a complaint with the Canadian Labour Congress.

On May 14, the congress told BCNU to stop, but Blamey said that didn’t occur.

“In fact, the nurses’ union has been pretty clear that they intend to pursue the associate membership of nurses in light of the Canadian Labour decision,” said Blamey.

Fane said continuing to offer the memberships is legal.

He said the associate membership program to give LPNs better knowledge about the BCNU and let them decide if they want to switch unions.

Fane said unions often compete and end up undercutting each other to take care of their own members, adding that combining nurses into one union would be good for bargaining strength and patient care.