Union seeking contract for Extendicare workers

By Lethbridge Herald on March 23, 2023.

Employees and members of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees rally to demand a new contract Thursday outside of their place of employment, Extendicare Fairmont Park. Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman

Alejandra Pulido-Guzman – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – apulido@lethbridgeherald.com

Members of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) staged a rally at Extendicare Fairmont Park Thursday to ask for a new contract.

Staff have been without one for six years. 

AUPE south region vice president, Darren Graham spoke to media during the rally and said they had approached the sixth year without a collective agreement for Extendicare workers. 

“We’re just trying to get Extendicare to come to the bargaining table with a reasonable offer. The group is about eight sites across the province, so we are rallying here today and if we need to we’ll organize rallies all throughout the province,” said Graham. 

He said the group represents about 1,500 members with the majority being part-time and casual employees. 

“Actually, we have 500 casuals that worked for this employer, and only about 370 full-time members across the province, so it’s pretty disrespectful when we’re in negotiations in 2020 and 2021 and they came to us with 0 per cent for wages during the height of the pandemic,” said Graham. 

He said Extendicare in 2020 paid $41.3 million in dividends and share buybacks to their shareholders.

“We really feel that you should be coming to the table and offering a respectful settlement with your own employees before doing stuff like that. The residents that pay for care here aren’t getting the proper care. Extendicare is struggling to get staff, struggling to keep stuff and actually they’re bringing in agency workers from staffing agencies and paying them more money than their own workforce and that’s just completely disrespectful,” said Graham. 

He said this is ultimately affecting the residents and their living conditions as well as employees who are trying to live on a wage from 2017 and they are not seeing any proposals coming forward. 

“The employer is also refusing to recognize things like Truth and Reconciliation so we’re out here to demand respect and if we need to keep rallying at every site, we’re gonna do that,” said Graham.

He said they called their employees heroes during the pandemic and now they are treating them like zeroes. 

“It’s so disrespectful, they basically gave them lip service during the pandemic to try to keep people coming into work, risking their lives, risking their families lives and then to not even bring a respectful agreement to the bargaining table it’s just shameful, it’s quite frankly shameful,” said Graham. 

He said Albertans need to call the government out on lack of a contract because at the end of the day the province has the power to regulate this.

“It’s really disrespectful when you see them prioritizing shareholder profits over top of their own employees and over top of the care that their residents deserve and that their families are paying for,” said Graham. 

He said the union is looking for language improvements and a decent wage settlement. 

“Our proposal is actually 6.25 per cent over a six-year time period and the employer they originally came with zeros, they’ve come up to approximately four per cent, but they’re not looking to provide any better language, which provides better quality of life for our members so that they can provide a better quality of life to the residents that are here,” said Graham. 

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