On Nov. 24, your negotiating team met with the employer to continue bargaining and to hone in on one of the top priorities you identified in your surveys: getting more full-time positions.
It’s evident that our workplace needs more regular positions because right now, our schedules are chaotic. We have casuals and part-timers picking up so many shifts that they’re working full-time hours without the predictability, stability, and protections that full-time positions offer.
This isn’t right, and it’s not good for residents, who depend on stable care for their emotional and physical health. However, Canterbury is not even meeting their obligation to show us our schedules 28 days in advance of shifts. Ultimately, their inaction on this issue has resulted in chronic short staffing.
As you know this problem started way before the pandemic, which only exacerbated pressures on the front lines, but Canterbury is acting like they’ve never heard about it before. In fact, during the pandemic, many other employers increased employees to full-time because they had to give up other employment, but not Canterbury. After initially committing to increase staff to full-time, they backtracked and expected people to make up for lost income through unstable pick-up shifts.
In preparation for bargaining, we asked them to gather schedule-related data, so we could have a productive conversation about our frustrations and get a real response on our reasonable proposal. Despite this early request and multiple discussions about this priority throughout bargaining, Canterbury is still saying they need time to evaluate if what we are saying is true.
At this point, we should not still be explaining such an obvious problem in day-to-day operations to our employer, especially when that problem is costing them money as they have to bring in agency staff, and pay overtime and other expenses related to the ripple effects of short-staffing.
Instead of moving forward productively on this issue, Canterbury responded to our other monetary proposals, such as overtime, shift premiums, benefits, salaries and more, saying that they do not believe our position is warranted in comparison to other seniors-care collective agreements. In fact, our compensation is lagging far behind other comparable sites. Here are a couple example agreements for other facilities in the same area of the city as Canterbury—Capital Care Lynnwood and Park Place Villa Marguerite. See for yourself!
On salaries, your negotiating team is not only pushing for general wage increases, but also grid adjustments that would see many of you earning what you deserve and create greater pay equity within the bargaining unit, especially for support services staff. We’ve also made it clear that your heroism throughout the pandemic needs to be reflected in your pay!
Get Mobilized!
We need to send a message to our employer that they must take actionon schedules and creating more FTEs, and other bargaining priorities. Our power is in our numbers and our front-line expertise, so let’s use both of these. Stay tuned for details of our mobilizing plans! You can use this form to make sure you have updated your contact information so we can reach you be email or phone/text: https://www.aupe.org/member-resources/forms/member-information-update-form
By showing the employer how serious we are about this issue, we can put real pressure on them. Let’s come together to tell Canterbury that we won’t be ignored!
For more information, feel free to contact your bargaining committee or AUPE staff.
CANTERBURY NEGOTIATIONS TEAM
Violeta Catungal vcatungal2004@yahoo.com or 587-974-7709
Mina Cadoyac cadayoc_mina@yahoo.ca or 780-729-9065
Phoebe Burton burton_phoebe08@yahoo.com or 780-614-4558
Alternate
Brianna Delaney BTwiztid@gmail.com or 780-782-0780
AUPE RESOURCE STAFF
Merryn Edwards, Negotiator m.edwards@aupe.org or 780-952-1951
Michelle Szalynski, Organizing m.szalynski@aupe.org or 403-634-8262
Celia Shea, Communications c.shea@aupe.org or 780-720-8122