Unions stage rally for better wages, working conditions

By Lethbridge Herald on August 2, 2024.

Herald Photo by Justin Seward Picketers stand in front of St. Michael's Health Centre during the rally to advocate for better wages and working conditions at the Covenant Care facility on Thursday.

Justin Seward
LETHBRIDGE HERALD

Members of several unions rallied in Lethbridge Thursday for the second time in a week about Alberta Health Services and Covenant Health not working with them in the bargaining process.

The rally was held outside of St. Michael’s Health Centre with members of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, Canadian Union of Public Employees and United Nurses of Alberta.

Curtis Jackson, AUPE’s South Region vice-president, said St. Michael’s is the employer for many of Local 40 Covenant Care members in Lethbridge.

“This site specifically, there are issues about OH&S,” said Jackson.

“We’ve had elevators out of service for several months going unrepaired, we have aggression towards our workers here at the site that’s going unaddressed and all workers deserve a fair and safe work site.”

Jackson thinks St. Michael’s workers deserve more.

“The offers the employers are making don’t even touch what projected inflation is for next year,” said Jackson.

“It’s just continuing that cycle of workers getting paid less while the cost of everything else goes up. 

“And unfortunately, public sector workers don’t have the ability to …  set their prices and also public sector workers, when we get those good raises, we invest that money into the community.”

The second rally was all because of members requests.

“Our members are saying we want to rally, we want to in Lethbridge and  so we showed up and we’ve done two in Lethbridge,” said Jackson.

Michelle Shields, CUPE 408 president and a St. Michael’s employee, thinks there are consistent struggles right across health care.

“We have huge struggles bringing in staff due to the wage levels and then we have huge staff problems (with) retaining staff due to the divisions in public private health care across this province,” said Shields.

Shields said it’s creating unsafe working conditions and that’s a real morale drag for our members.

“Morale is dropping,” said Shields.

“Our members haven’t seen a wage increase in almost 10 years except for a one per cent Me Too wage two years ago and that’s not keeping up with cost of living. Our CUPE union has the lowest wages in this province right now and our members are hitting food banks and they’re hitting social support to try and survive.”

Workers are leaving as a result of the ongoing issues.

“We’ve tried to do some initiatives to bring staff in, and they come, and then they get a taste of what work is really like and then you see a lot of them leaving because it’s a lot,” said Kathy Bandmann, a member of the AUPE negotiating committee for nursing care in Covenant health.

“The workload is crazy and there’s not enough support.”

St. Michael’s has been without a contract since 2020.

“We need to let the public know what’s going on and nobody here wants to get in a situation where (we are) in a confrontation,” said Rory Gill, Alberta division president for CUPE.

“We want to get fair deals  at the bargaining table but we also need to be able to support ourselves.”

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biff

11 months ago

the worker has been gouged by big corp prices – oligopolies making a mockery of so-called free market prices – and then further squeezed by the fact that most employers cannot keep up to the ultra inflation we have experienced the past 4 years. big corp could afford to increase salaries accordingly, but, of course, they are not about the worker but about making as massive profits as they can get away with. as for inflation figures, they are so bent that barely give us a hint of how much the real costs of real living have soared.

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