Manitobans brace for possible health care worker strike

Families across the province are bracing for a potential strike among health-care workers.

Twenty-five thousand employees could hit the picket lines as early as Tuesday morning, making it the second-largest strike in Manitoba’s history.

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Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union (MGEU) president Kyle Ross said while negotiations have been in the works, “it’s not looking promising.”

The last offer was refused in a union vote. Ross said the employers and the province have not listened to workers’ demands and called the process “frustrating.”

The Canadian Union of Public Employees and MGEU jointly served strike notice in September, giving the mandated 14-day warning.

If a strike goes ahead, it will affect communities south of the 53rd parallel, such as Winnipeg, Brandon, Dauphin, Selkirk, Portage la Prairie, Winkler and Steinbach. This includes health-care aides, laundry workers, dietary aides, ward clerks, recreation coordinators and other support staff in hospitals and personal care homes, as well as those involved in the home care program.

While essential services will continue, the job action could create a major disruption for those receiving care at home and at long-term care facilities.

“For those things that are nice that they need, but they don’t need to survive, they may not get that service as often or as much,” Ross said.

Those services include bathing and hygiene support, providing medications and helping an individual get in and out of bed.

“This isn’t just a nice-to-have situation,” said Laura Tamblyn Watts, the CEO of CanAge – Canada’s national seniors advocacy organization. “The care that’s provided in personal care homes by these workers is the care that keeps other people alive.”

Some facilities and health regions are preparing for a potential strike by issuing letters to families who may have to step in and fill the gap.

“Getting letters saying they may not have those professionals is going to strike terror into the hearts of family members,” Tamblyn Watts said. “But it will also probably mean that we’re going to have to be searching for more support.”

The workers are asking for better wages, a better work-life balance and more incentive to work in the health care industry.

“In many of these rural communities where the members we represent (are), the jobs out there pay better than the $17.07 where you start in health care. So the workers aren’t choosing health care.”

For seniors’ advocate Eddie Calisto-Tavares, the imminent strike reminded her of problems from the pandemic.

“We already had holes; people that were not taking up those jobs because they couldn’t make enough money,” she recalled. “So why are we playing games?”

In a statement to CTV News, Manitoba’s Health, Seniors and Long-Term Care Minister Uzoma Asagwara said the government values and respects “health-care workers across the province.

“We want to make sure they can exercise their right to negotiate at the bargaining table,” Asagwara continued. “We will remain at the table with healthcare workers to come to a fair deal.”

Ross said while the situation is unfortunate, it’s necessary.

“The last thing we want to do is have a strike and impose these things on Manitobans,” he said.