Healthcare support staff in two rural Manitoba health regions have authorized a strike action
Posted August 16, 2024 3:06 pm.
Last Updated August 17, 2024 11:12 am.
Health-care support staff in two rural Manitoba health regions have voted to reject a contract offer and are now authorizing a strike action.
Around 6,500 healthcare aides, dietary aides, maintenance, and other healthcare workers in the province’s Interlake-Eastern and Prairie Mountain regions have voted “overwhelmingly” against a tentative agreement. The last contract expired at the end of March.
“I know that everyone wants these agreements to go as smoothly as possible and sometimes, these matters arise and that’s okay. There is a collective bargaining process for a reason, and we are confident as a government that we will continue to work through them, and we are always going to be at the table in good faith,” said Uzoma Asagwara, Manitoba’s Health Minister.
MGEU President Kyle Ross says healthcare support workers are “being left behind – with the lowest pay in Canada.” A report released by the MGEU in late July says there are over 700 vacant health care aide and home care positions in both the Prairie Mountain and Interlake-Eastern regions.
“The actual hands-on patient care that is important and impacts their well-being is done by the support staff and we need them there,” said Yvonne Oxer, a nurse in Selkirk.
Oxer has been a nurse for over 50 years. She’s been on two strikes while working, one in the 70s and one in the 90s. She says patient care gets impacted and staff do not like being on strike.
“I would hope that there can be some reconciliation and some agreement so that we can get these people back. They are an important part of health care and we need them in the hospitals, not on a picket line.”
President Darlene Jackson of the Manitoba Nurses Union says it’s worrying to think there could be another strike involving healthcare staff.
“We’re already working short-staffed in every facility that I know of, and struggling to provide safe quality patient care, so I think this will definitely have an impact,” said Jackson.
Jackson says she hopes a deal comes through soon before a strike happens.
“My message would be to government and employers, please value these individuals, we need them as part of the team. We need all health care workers valued and acknowledged for what they bring to the table.”