More than 25,000 health-care support workers could go on strike Oct. 8.
The health-care support staff members work at hospitals and personal care homes, and in the provincial home-care program. The workers include health-care aides, laundry workers, dietary aides, ward clerks, recreation co-ordinators and other support staff.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 204 and the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union announced the potential strike date at a joint news conference Tuesday morning. CUPE represents support staff members with Shared Health, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and Southern Health, while the MGEU represents support workers in the Prairie Mountain and Interlake-Eastern health regions.
The unions said their bargaining committees are ready to return to negotiating as soon as possible to try and reach a settlement before Oct. 8. In the event of a strike, agreements have been negotiated, as required by provincial legislation, to ensure essential health-care services continue.
“If Manitoba is serious about fixing health care, it will need to resolve the health-care staffing crisis, and that means paying fair and competitive wages for health-care support workers,” CUPE local president Gina McKay said in a news release handed out at the news conference.
“Health-care jobs that were once seen as highly desirable are just not competitive anymore. The result is increasing staff vacancy rates that are negatively affecting patients and residents.”
The unions previously said workers have been “in a possible strike position” since mid-August and that a strike would affect health-care facilities and personal care homes in communities including Winnipeg, Brandon, Steinbach, Selkirk and Portage la Prairie.
“You can’t expect to fix health care if you have the lowest-paid health workers in Canada. The employers’ last offer just doesn’t do enough to recruit and retain the workers needed to run our health care,” MGEU president Kyle Ross said in the release.
Health-care workers represented by MGEU rejected a contract offer last month. MGEU said at the time the province’s starting wage for support workers was $17.07 an hour, the lowest in the country, and the rejected deal included a one per cent wage increase retroactive to April 1 and an 11.25 per cent wage hike spread over the four years of the contract.
Workers represented by CUPE also rejected their offer and voted to strike after the union recommended workers accept the offer.
fpcity@freepress.mb.ca