The union for health care aides employed across a large part of Manitoba has told their health region bosses they will no longer agree to private agency staff doing their work.
“We’ve told the employer we will work with them to make the transition from agency staff a safe and smooth one,” the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union said in a memo to members that was shared with the Free Press.
It represents 587 health-care aides in Interlake-Eastern and 1,407 in Prairie Mountain who work in hospitals, care homes, assisted-living facilities and in home care.
They are negotiating a new contract after the previous one expired at the end of March.
The union says the health regions have increasingly leaned on for-profit agencies to fill staffing gaps at the expense of consistent care for patients and residents, as well as the public purse.
“Millions of health care dollars have been spent on unnecessary travel by agency workers and additional costs related to duplicate administration,” the MGEU told members.
In May, freedom of information requests filed by the union showed that spending on private agency health care aides had soared.
The Interlake-Eastern Health region spent $8.7 million on private aides in 2023-24, more than double the $3.4 million spent in 2021-22. The Prairie Mountain Health region spent almost $14.8 million for the first nine months of the 2022-23 fiscal year, nearly triple the $4.8 million spent in 2021-22.
On Friday, neither of the two health regions responded to a request for comment about the union’s demand for an end to the use of private agency aides.
“These resources would be better spent in the public system and on vital workers like you,” the MGEU memo to workers said.
The president of the union said on Friday that their collective agreement had allowed for non-union workers to be brought in when needed.
“It’s really supposed to be used as the exception and right now it’s the norm and that’s not good for anyone,” Kyle Ross said.
“It’s not good for health care. It’s not good for continued care in these places where they are using agency (help), and we really want to turn it back into the exception,” the union president said.
“I think we want a system that has workers working in the public system, working in their hometowns, working to support the people that they know and live around,” Ross said.
Health care aides who work in the public system have said much of their time is taken up to support fill-in agency staff, who “don’t understand this person’s needs or the facility and how it works,” he said. “It creates a lot of problems.”
Much of the private agency use is by care homes in rural communities, Ross said.
“We need to get locals working in those facilities to help support the local economy and local people.”
That’s not easy when workers are scarce, he said. Care homes are competing with fast-food outlets for entry-level workers, said Ross.
“Jobs in health care aren’t entry level,” Ross said. “It takes a lot more effort, a lot more work.”
The standard hourly starting wage for MGEU’s health-care aides is $20.09. Manitoba’s minimum wage is $15.30 per hour.
“When you’re competing on the same wage scale, these people are going to take the easier work,” Ross said. “It’s really unfortunate.”
It’s a challenge that’s easy to resolve if the province has the “fortitude” to look at why aide jobs aren’t being filled, he said.
“I think it’ll show that it’s because they’re not competitive in the market for the skills and the effort that it takes to do this work.”
carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter
Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.
Every piece of reporting Carol produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.