Dozens of employees at the Heritage Life Personal Care Home in Niverville are expected to walk off the job Wednesday morning.

Executive Director Ron Parent says the strike is set to officially begin at 7 am for 85 members from the International Union of Operating Engineers. Parent says their collective agreement with this group of employees, which includes health care aides, housekeepers, laundry workers, and recreation workers, expired March 31st, 2022. He notes since then there have been ongoing negotiations between the union and employer until last week, when they hired a conciliator to help bridge the gap between some of the outstanding items. 

"We made progress on majority of the items, except for one, which is the biggest item," says Parent. "And that is retroactivity on wages, going back to April 1st of 2022."

Parent explains that the PCH has an essential services agreement, which was negotiated back in 2022. He notes there is legislation within Manitoba that obligates employers of health care facilities and their unions to have an essential services agreement in place. Parent says the agreement covers such things as essential tasks and minimum staffing levels. 

"Some of the actions that we've taken to ensure services will continue, even with the reduced workforce, is having myself and the other out-of-scope employees and managers to fill in the gaps and pick up the slack where it's warranted, such as making beds, assisting during mealtimes, things of that nature," notes Parent.

As of Tuesday morning, Parent says they are still waiting for notification from Manitoba Health and Southern Health-Sante Sud, on their approval for funding requests. He notes that as a non-profit community-based personal care home, they rely heavily on funding from the regional health authority and Manitoba Health. 

"Without that support, we are unable to meet the union's requests for retroactivity in wages," he adds. "The agreement that they are asking for is reasonable and in line with all other provincial contracts at this time."

Parent says that since the pandemic, there has been a move towards standardizing wages and benefits throughout the province. However, he notes Heritage Life Personal Care Home is one of a few outliers. Parent says that is because they are a smaller subset of those main agreements, and the request has been to just bring their wages and benefits in line with provincial contracts. 

Meanwhile, Parent says the expected work stoppage does not include those covered by the Manitoba Nurses Union. 

 

With files from Adi Loewen