MEDICINE HAT—Approximately 60 Auxiliary Nursing Care and General Support Service employees of Medicine Hat's Valleyview Care Centre went on strike at noon today after their employer failed to return to the bargaining table with a reasonable offer for a new collective agreement.
Dale Perry, AUPE Staff Negotiator for the Local 048/019 members on strike at the assisted living and long-term care facility, said he met with a representative for the Calgary-based employer AgeCare Investments Ltd. yesterday.
"I spoke with the employer's representative at 5 p.m. last night," Perry said this morning, but "the employer hasn't expressed any interest in returning to the bargaining table."
Perry said pickets will run outside the facility "12 hours a day, 7 days a week, during daylight hours, to ensure everyone's safety. For the first few days we've asked all the members to come out while we work out detailed schedules."
Eight-five per cent of Valleyview GSS and ANC staff rejected a final offer from the employer on Wednesday in an on-site vote supervised by the Alberta Labour Relations Board. Perry said the union bargaining committee was willing to return to the table with the employer right up until the noon deadline for the strike, provided that the employer was "willing to restart negotiations in a reasonable and constructive manner."
Employees of the facility are paid wages that are as much as 30 per cent less than those paid to most other workers doing similar work in the area, Perry explained. "Our members are looking for approximate parity with the wages paid for the same work at similar facilities in and near Medicine Hat."
In addition, he said, shift and weekend differential pay, health benefits, long-term disability, short-term disability, sick leave, vacations, and leaves of absence are all significantly behind those of employees of similar facilities in the region.
"Our members feel as if they have been pushed against the wall. They don't want to strike, but that is the only choice that has been left to them unless this employer relents and gets back to the bargaining table," he said.
Nonetheless, he added that "our members at this worksite are strong, united and are prepared to do what they have to to win a fair contact."
AgeCare Investments, founded by Dr. Hasmukh Patel and Dr. Kabir Jivraj in 1998, provides housing as well as personal care services to residents on a fee-for-service basis, for example, $145 per month for help dressing and $105 per month for assistance using the toilet for 10 minutes a day.
The employer briefly returned to the bargaining table after employees held a strike vote Feb. 19 in which "99 per cent" of the members voted in favour of taking job action if it was required gain a fair collective agreement, Perry said.
At a worksite meeting on March 4, members expressed the view the employer's latest offer was still far out of step compared to similar facilities both in Medicine Hat and the rest of the province.
A provincially appointed mediator was unable to resolve negotiations earlier this year and instead provided a letter to the union and the employer on Jan. 12 indicating that the two sides were too far apart to make a recommendation.
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For more information contact:
Dale Perry, Staff Negotiator, AUPE – 780-238-8697 (cellular), 780-930-3347
David Climenhaga, Communications Director, AUPE – 780-717-2943 (cellular), 780-930-3311
