As early as Wednesday, April 24, unionized staff of the Niverville Heritage Life Personal Care Home (HLPCH) may be on strike.
This news was recently relayed to family members and support people of the many residents living at the senior care facility.
The workers taking to the picket lines will include healthcare aides, housekeepers, laundry, and recreational staff.
According to Ron Parent, executive director of the Niverville Heritage Centre, the facility’s management team has been successful in their negotiations with the workers union to date with the exception of one critical snag: the request for a retroactive wage settlement.
Union workers of the HLPCH have been working without a contract since March 31, 2022.
The first notifications from Parent to family members were sent out between April 17 and 19.
While he admitted in these messages that the provisions of the bargaining agreement are fair and comparable to other similar workers around the province, the hands of the Heritage Centre administration are tied on this one.
“As a non-profit, community-based personal care home which is part of the Heritage Centre, a social enterprise, we rely heavily on funding from Southern Health-Santé Sud (SHSS) for financial support required to meet the needs of those living within our Home and the community.”
This funding, he adds, comes from Manitoba Health but is governed through a service purchase agreement with SHSS. The current SHSS agreement did not account for retroactive wages or benefits for the workers.
“As a not-for-profit, we do not have the resources to fund retroactive wages and benefits,” Parent says. “SHSS remains a strong partner in supporting all our needs, which includes completing our negotiations.”
In his earlier communications, Parent indicated optimism that senior leadership at the SHSS might change their minds. If not, he noted that contingency plans were being discussed among the managers and non-union staff members.
On Monday, April 23, an update to family members and other stakeholders confirmed that, despite extensive talks between the Heritage Centre, SHSS, and Manitoba Health, the hoped-for additional funds were not approved.
On Monday night, a new agreement was reached between the HLPCH and union reps, granting an extension of 24 hours before any strike would take effect.
In the meantime, Parent told The Citizen on Tuesday that replacement staff will be pulled from HLPCH management and non-unionized Heritage Centre staff to fill in on housekeeping and laundry duties as needed.
As well, the wording of the current collective agreement lays out terms under the province’s Essential Services Act which outline the minimum number of unionized staff the HLPCH can keep working during a work stoppage.
“Within the document, there’s a few provisos that [tell us that], when and if needed, we can make a request to increase staffing to support the care and services that we provide,” says Parent.
The request is made directly to the union, he says, after which a formal negotiation takes place.
Parent says it won’t be clear just how many additional staff they may need until after HLPCH administrators have had a chance to assess how well they’re managing during the strike period.
Parent is welcoming family members who would like to volunteer their time to help fill the gap if the strike materializes.
In the meantime, he adds that the Heritage Centre will continue to bargain for the unionized workers’ rights.
“We want to provide them with the wages and benefits they deserve but can only do so with the assistance of the province,” Parent says.
As for the reason the HLPCH union workers haven’t seen a contract renewal since 2022, Parent says he’s unclear on all the details. He feels, though, that negotiations were likely halted when his predecessor took an unexpected leave of absence during that time.
Parent assumed the position of executive director for the Heritage Centre campus in the fall of 2023. He and his team have been in negotiations with the union ever since.
