Winnipeg – An overwhelming majority (85%) of employees at Lions Housing Personal Care Home voted in favour of a strike mandate for a second time in a vote conducted on Friday, October 18th.
“Long term care workers deserve fairness and respect” states Daniel Richards, Treasurer of CUPE Local 3729, “we are underpaid, overworked, short-staffed, and cannot provide the level and quality of care that we think Manitobans deserve”.
The strike vote comes after months of negotiations, meetings with a provincial conciliation officer on August 12th and 21st, and two days of information pickets in August. Additionally, a vote was conducted on October 3rd, with a majority of employees voting to strike. The employer requested an extension to the strike deadline and unfortunately could not return to the table with a fair offer.
“Our members care very deeply for the residents at Lions Housing Personal Care Home” states Paula Raposo, CUPE National Representative, “yet the employer and provincial funders do not seem to recognize that the people responsible for taking care of Manitoba seniors need to be compensated fairly for their work”.
Employees at Lions Housing Personal Care Home are approximately 9.5% below other similarly operated long-term care facilities.
In addition to fair wages, CUPE Local 3729 members are also joining the province-wide call against working “short-staffed” in Manitoba long-term care homes. Working short staffed occurs when there are not enough health care aides per shift to adequately care for all residents. This leads to employees struggling to fill the gap in the workload and can lead to stress, additional sick time and an unsafe work environment.
The strike date is set for October 28, 2013.
Visit http://3729.cupe.ca/ for more information.