Manitoba healthcare workers could soon go on strike
Posted April 20, 2023 4:00 pm.
Last Updated April 20, 2023 8:46 pm.
The Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals says it’s been five years since they last had a contract and frustrations are rising among its members.
The union, representing over 7,000 healthcare workers across Manitoba, says 99 per cent of their members are in favour of a strike mandate if a deal is not reached.
“We are out here to send a message to government that it’s time to get serious. They need to come to the table with a mandate,” said Jason Linklater, president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals.
“And we are still not anywhere near getting our contract completed and that’s why we’re here today to send a message to the government that just says, ‘Get this done.’”
Adding, “It’s a wide variety of services that Manitobans rely on that will absolutely be impacted by a strike situation if the government does not come to the table that make wages competitive in Manitoba.”
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Linklater says Manitoba is seeing a staffing crisis among its healthcare professionals, and the key to resolving it requires both recruiting and retention efforts from the province.
“We’re losing people every single day to other provinces and in some cases, people are leaving their professions entirely because they just had it.”
Matt Hollingshead has been a rural paramedic for 8 years. He says for the last three years, the staffing crisis for paramedics have been ‘out of control.’
“I’m here because I’m struggling with the paramedic staffing crisis that’s ongoing,” said Hollingshead. “It’s frustrating to see the government not take it seriously and not provide the necessary investment to retain paramedics in rural Manitoba.”
A spokesperson for Shared Health says that although they can’t discuss details of ongoing negotiations, they are committed to completing a fair and long-term collective agreement for its health care employees, a new deal which they say includes ‘compounding increases with significant retroactive pay.’
“I believe we absolutely can solve it, but the very first step in that process is getting a contract in place and it seems to be the one step that’s being missed,” said Linklater.
