Even though public health orders have been lifted effective July 11, 2021 in Saskatchewan, we all should remember that the pandemic is not ‘over’.
Even though public health orders have been lifted effective July 11, 2021 in Saskatchewan, we all should remember that the pandemic is not ‘over’.
Print Extendicare Bargaining Update no. 2
Date: July 23, 2021
Greetings Sisters and Brothers,
Your Extendicare Bargaining Committee has been hard at work.
We have completed the bargaining survey and it will be available from your unit chairs next week.
SEIU-West members who work at Elmview, Moose Jaw, Parkside, Preston, and Sunset Extendicare facilities, please return your completed survey to your Unit Chairperson BY FRIDAY AUGUST 20, 2021!
Hey Moe! Respect Us Protect Us Pay Us – Campaign Launch
(Saskatchewan, Canada) – Today SEIU-West proudly formally launches its newest summer-activism campaign: Hey Moe! #RespectUsProtectUsPayUs.
“As Premier Scott Moe continues to push Saskatchewan to ‘the way it should be,’ he and his government need to remember who bore the brunt of this pandemic and helped get the province to this point – front line essential workers,” says SEIU-West President Cape. “There has been extensive damage done to our public service workforce in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that needs to be repaired.”
Accompanied by a digital and mass email campaign, billboards across Saskatchewan and other multimedia outlets, SEIU-West’s HeyMoe.ca campaign is about telling Scott Moe and his Cabinet that there is an urgent need to repair and invest in public services. Billboards across Saskatchewan are running these messages… except for Directwest billboards, owned by Scott Moe’s government, which refused to run the message, declaring it “divisive”.
There is some controversy from one advertiser about our campaign,” explains Cape. “How, exactly, does a simple request for respect, protection and fair wages for the thousands of essential workers serving Saskatchewan’s front line today offend this government-owned company’s guidelines?”
SEIU-West members, like all essential front line workers across Saskatchewan, have been providing hands-on care and in-person services since the very start of the pandemic, enduring extraordinary personal, mental, physical and financial hurdles including the absence of and/or insufficient personal protective equipment; inconsistent application of protocols; isolation and lack of mental health supports; insufficient staffing levels; and unfair, arbitrary distribution of the Government of Canada’s temporary wage supplement.
COVID-19 has gravely injured a public service that was broken prior to the pandemic’s arrival – now it needs time, money and leadership to heal.
Cape adds “We are asking everyone in Saskatchewan who supported and applauded essential workers as heroes, to please sign onto the letter at HeyMoe.ca and send a message to Premier Moe that we need to act now by investing significant funding into our public services.”
The HeyMoe.ca campaign’s hashtag, #RespectUsProtectUsPayUs, demands Saskatchewan front line workers be:
Service Employees International Union West (SEIU-West) represents over 13,000 people across Saskatchewan. They include people who work in health care, education, municipalities, community-based organizations, retirement homes and other sectors. They are joined by one colour – purple – and one union – SEIU-West. Visit PurpleWorks.ca to find out more about SEIU-West members.
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To download and print a PDF copy of this release please click here.
For more information, contact:
Christine Miller
Communications
306-477-8733
Read President Barb Cape's July 9, 2021 letter to Directwest CEO
Even though public health orders have been lifted effective July 11, 2021 in Saskatchewan, we all should remember that the pandemic is not ‘over’.
SEIU-West has made significant investments in publicly-owned Directwest, to advertise and promote issues that are important to our members and the entire province of Saskatchewan.
Imagine our surprise when SEIU-West’s latest billboards were deemed offensive to Directwest’s “guidelines”, to the extent that they rejected both our billboards and the revenue they would generate for the publicly-owned Crown Corporation.
Below you can read the letter sent to Directwest CEO Keith Jeannot by President Barb Cape, or you can download a PDF copy of the original by clicking here.
Keith Jeannot, CEO
Directwest
355 Longman Crescent, Regina, SK S4N 6G3
July 9, 2021
Dear Mr Jeannot:
I write regarding your appraisal of SEIU-West’s latest billboards as offensive to Directwest’s “guidelines”, to the extent that you have rejected both our billboards and the revenue they would generate for the publicly-owned Crown Corporation over which you preside.
In an email to our office, your representative made clear that Directwest has “…sensitivity guidelines when it comes to political or union messaging that has to be approved by our CEO…” only then to be told this is a standard applied to all advertising. It appears to be subjective as to whether you apply this to union/political advertising or all advertising. Further, you have stated your advertising guidelines won’t allow campaign messaging that is “divisive” in nature - exactly what about our campaign do you feel objectively meets this criteria?
How, exactly, does a simple request for respect, protection and fair wages for the thousands of essential workers serving Saskatchewan’s front line today offend the Directwest guidelines? Specifically, we are looking for clarification on how you determined our campaign, to properly support essential workers and by extension, the people of Saskatchewan whom they serve (as do you), could be considered problematic at all? The identical ads are in heavy rotation on your competitors’ billboards already; and yet, somehow we’ve avoided a civil war.
SEIU-West has made significant investments in publicly-owned Directwest to advertise and promote issues that are important to our members and the entire province of Saskatchewan. You’d think this would be significant and received with gratitude, yet we’re left only with questions about why you’ve suddenly made the bizarre decision to assign completely arbitrary, politically-biased guidelines to a union campaign for essential workers.
With a billboard budget alone worth over $150,000/year, we are happy to spend our advertising dollars with another firm and have committed to advising the people of Saskatchewan, including all stakeholders in our province’s labour sector, that partisan politics have infiltrated Directwest to this troubling extent. We expect that you will cancel our billboard contract in its entirety.
If Directwest’s new censorship mandate changes in the future, please let me know.
Sincerely,
Barbara Cape
President, SEIU-West
Read Directwest CEO Keith Jeannot's July 12, 2021 reply to Barb Cape's letter by clicking here.
Read Barb Cape's July 16, 2021 followup letter to Don Morgan, Minister for Labour Relations and Minister Responsible for SaskTel (of which Directwest is a subsidiary) by clicking here.
Canada is an imperfect country. This year, if you choose to celebrate Canada Day, consider celebrating the more perfect country Canada can become. To do this, we must begin by acknowledging many deeply uncomfortable truths about Canada’s past—truths that still cause harm today.
The recent discovery of the remains of hundreds of children in unmarked graves on the grounds of former residential schools is a reality that should overwhelm every Canadian to their core.
It is a stark reminder of a truth that most of us were not taught in history class: our country created a system of residential schools, the purpose and effect of which were a cultural genocide of First Nations and Metis people.
Facing this truth is incredibly uncomfortable—yet every Canadian must do it for Canada to become the truly great nation is has the potential to be.
Why not spend some of this Canada Day learning about our troubled past and taking action to reverse its painful legacy? If you haven’t yet, read the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) calls to action.
Read the Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
Contact your Member of Parliament and your Member of the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly to demand clean drinking water for First Nations communities, a provincial bus service, affordable housing, addictions treatment centres, and increased education funding.
Celebrate what we are, but always fight for better.
Whether you moved here or were born here, we are all treaty people; that means we are responsible for living up to the legal and moral obligations of those treaties. Let’s work together and honor those that have come before us this Canada Day.
We also need to lift up and celebrate September 30, which was recently announced as National Truth and Reconciliation Day. Start thinking now of what September 30 can look like going forward - let’s build the Canada we know we can be!
“This Canada Day, as imperfect as we are, we acknowledge we have years to go before we truly have a perfect union with our First Nations brothers and sisters. We need to lift up and celebrate September 30, which was recently announced as National Truth and Reconciliation Day.” - Barb Cape, President, SEIU-West
