Health-care support staff ratify contracts
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/09/2022 (1244 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
It’s taken nearly half a decade, but Manitoba health-care support workers represented by Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) finally have a collective agreement with the province.
The new agreement was ratified Friday, with 18,000 health-care support staff voting in favour of the new deal, which expires March 31, 2024.
This covers some Brandon Regional Health Centre staff and Westman Lab staff represented by CUPE, said the union’s health-care co-ordinator Shannon McAteer during an interview with the Sun. Most of the staff are represented by the union in other settings across Manitoba.
The new agreement contains wage increases in each year, retroactive pay, a signing bonus, increased shift premiums, double overtime, and market adjustments, CUPE stated in a news release.
Representatives were eager to get this deal signed because of how long it took, McAteer said. She said the cost of living is rising at a meteoric rate for its members, and they wanted the guarantee of retroactive pay, among other things, in writing, so the legally required 120 days for employers to adjust salaries can take effect.
“The members aren’t exactly thrilled over this because the cost of living has gone so much higher,” McAteer said. “We were told members were ratifying it because it has taken too long, and they need the money and the retro pay and want a contract. Now the clock starts ticking for the 120 days and they will get all their benefits because they are so far behind.”
Such a long wait for a new collective agreement isn’t normal, she said, but there were several factors at play.
McAteer said the deal was delayed by government restructuring that forced members to choose a union to represent them. That also complicated matters because CUPE had to merge 120 collective agreements into one when they were chosen to be the bargaining union.
This wasn’t the only instance of Manitoba health-care support staff having a very long wait for a new contract. Health-care supports services and community support workers in Prairie Mountain and Interlake Eastern regional health authorities represented by the Manitoba Government Employees Union also had a new collective agreement ratified Aug. 22. According to MGEU, that agreement took six years.
» kmckinley@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @karenleighmcki1