Last year, SEIU created a survey for members about climate change and the impact on your lives.
Pinned
June is National Indigenous Peoples Month. This is a time to honour the rich history, resilience, and diversity of First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples. It is an opportunity to reflect on historical and current injustices and commit to true reconciliation in Canada.
The First Nations, Métis and Inuit Committee would like to share some events and resources with you and encourage you to participate in events in your area.
SEIU-West is hosting our first Asian Pacific Islander Summit in Saskatoon on September 24-26, 2026 — an event to bring together workers from across Canada and the U.S.
Being an API member in Canada or the U.S can sometimes feel isolating. You might not have seen yourself in leadership. You may not have always felt seen or understood. But you can find a home with us. We believe in you. We see you. And most importantly, you belong.
Welcome home.
There is currently a vacancy on the SEIU-West Executive Board for members that work for the Community Based Organizations Sector.
You may have noticed there hasn't been an announcement about bbqs for the summer yet.
The SEIU-West First Nations, Métis and Inuit Committee (FNMIC) is hosting a contest to design an image for orange shirts that the committee provides yearly to members. Submit your design to enter to win a $100 Co-op gift card.
as a Combined Lab & X-Ray Tech (CLXT). She provides both x-rays and lab testing services.
Shannon worked in an Acute Care Lab Facility doing Microbiology Bacteria/Seriology until this week.
Anita is a Senior Medical Lab Assistant (MLA) and has been for the past 15 years. She works in an urban acute care facility.
Collective agreement reached between Cheshire Homes of Saskatoon and SEIU-West
Blood: It’s In You to Give
(Unless You Live in Rural Saskatchewan, Apparently)
SEIU-West member Carla works in an urban hospital as a Medical Lab Tech (MLT), specifically in hematology. She manages coagulation therapy and analyzes blood counts for patients with leukemia, gastrointestinal bleeds, heart attacks, and monitors patients during surgeries.
Carla's life and job were busy before COVID-19 hit and both have just gotten busier over the past year. Rural hospitals from across the province send in COVID samples to be processed and analyzed. The pressure of knowing someone is waiting on results as the samples stack up has been draining. Her team is doing their best in these circumstances, but the daily worry of whether they themselves catch COVID, or bring it home to their loved ones only adds anxiety to an already stressed work environment. Like so many health care workers, MLTs patiently await their vaccine and hope the virus numbers go down soon. She’s watched her coworkers exit the system over the past year, likely in part to the anxiety of COVID and the stress it’s added to the field.
One of Carla’s favorite memories this winter was when she left work after a night shift knowing that there were COVID samples that had yet to be processed and when she returned the next day they were caught up. It took a snow storm to assist in getting through the backlog.
Carla would love to send a message to thank everyone that has assisted us to limit transmission by using masks and sanitizer, and limiting themselves to essential travel and needs.
We are proud to send a message back to everyone on Carla’s team during National Medical Laboratory Week thanking all who work in our provincial lab services for their incredible dedication and work to help diagnose and protect everyone across the province.
It’s National Medical Laboratory Week, a time to reflect on the health care professionals who work behind the scenes to help diagnose everything from cancer to diabetes to COVID-19.
To celebrate, take the opportunity to learn a bit of the terminology our members working in medical labs use every day with this crossword puzzle contest! Send a picture of yourself holding your completed Medical Lab Week crossword puzzle to [email protected] by Friday, April 16, 2021 at 5PM, for your chance to win a gift card! Download a printable PDF copy of the puzzle here, and if you're stuck, find a link to the answer key here.
Date: April 8, 2021
Greetings Sisters and Brothers,
Your SEIU-West bargaining committee continues to work with SAHO and the Employer on the final details related to bargaining: checking to make sure that all of the new or changed language is included in the collective agreement, checking the wage schedules, and managing format and grammar issues.
On Thursday April 1, 2021 SEIU-West hosted a question and answer session about the direction and handling of the COVID pandemic in Saskatchewan with University of Saskatchewan microbiology and immunology professor Dr. Kyle Anderson.
You can watch the full-length video by clicking here, or watch and share these bite-sized vignettes from our YouTube channel playlist.
Check back with this page regularly for updated videos and information from Dr. Kyle.
Provincial Budget Ignores Realities of COVID
April 8, 2021 (Regina, SK) – Despite what we hear in the media about the provincial government’s spending plan for this fiscal year, it’s all too obvious that the priorities in this budget do not coincide with any of the social programs or ministries hardest hit by COVID-19.
“We have noted that the lowest budgetary increases were to K-12 education, followed by the health sector at 5-6%. On the flip side, there is an over 500% increase to the Ministry of Trade and Export. This is telling when we look at our provincial priorities over the last year,” says Barbara Cape, President of SEIU-West.
“Specifically, this budget provides no comfort to our members who work in Community-Based Organizations (CBO),” adds Cape. “For the last 13 years, our members who work in the CBO sector have campaigned vigorously for multi-year funding. This government has ignored the ongoing hardships that they face due to a lack of stability.”
SEIU-West CBO members provide valuable client-facing front line care and services in group homes, crisis response, addiction recovery facilities and day care centres and regularly face the challenge of provincial funding running out.
“On the failed promise of hiring 300 Continuing Care Assistants (CCAs), a mere 5% increase to the CCA positions in long-term care was insufficient at best; now in this budget reveals they will not keep their commitment – rather we see a ‘down payment’ of only 100, potentially, during this fiscal year,” continues Cape. “This is unconscionable as the need is so very pronounced; a fact made so abundantly clear during our prior year of long-term care tragedies during a global pandemic.
“The additional strain on our health care system due to the onslaught of sickness and death during COVID has not been addressed in this budget. We are not certain how our members in the health sector can place any trust in our government. We question how the $56 million allocated to the Temporary Wage Supplement in 2020-21 was spent as there is no transparency here. We know that it was not offered equitably to all front line essential workers in health care.”
The Saskatchewan Temporary Wage Supplement has not been offered to health care providers who work in hospitals and only included those who work in home care during the second round of payments.
“Finally, our members in education support continue to suffer from the previous funding cuts in this sector; an increase of 2.3% does not even measure inflation. COVID has presented a need for added student supports; this funding demonstrates that our provincial government are unwilling to fund these supports. It’s a reckless dismissal of education quality concerns voiced by students, parents and those who work in the sector and will haunt our province for years to come.”
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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For more information, contact:
Christine Miller
Communications
306-477-8733
To print a downloadable version of this release, please click here.