Members of one of the two unions representing a total of more than 25,000 health-care support workers have voted to ratify a new collective agreement.
A tentative contract deal was reached about 90 minutes before a strike deadline on Oct. 8.
“Our members stuck together to get a really good deal that will help solve the health-care staffing crises,” CUPE 500 president Gord Delbridge said in a news release Friday afternoon.
“We have built an agreement that helps recruit new members and retain the ones we have.”
The agreement includes an average wage increase of 27 per cent over the four years of the deal and an increase in the starting wage for high-vacancy positions.
About 19,000 of the health-care support workers are represented by CUPE Manitoba. Others are represented by the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union. The status of the MGEU ratification vote was not immediately clear Friday.
The workers include health-care aides, laundry workers, dietary aides, ward clerks, recreation co-ordinators and other support staff. A strike would have affected patients and clients living in the Winnipeg, Interlake-Eastern, Prairie Mountain and Southern Health regions.
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