In 2024, Canada experienced yet another record-breaking. year of extreme weather events driven by climate change, including heat waves, wildfires, and floods. Scientists project an increase in these events in the coming years.
Pinned
Important Message from Barbara Cape
Nominations: Shelly Banks Above & Beyond Award 2025
This award has been established to honour Shelly Banks who led by example and served as SEIU-West vice-president from 2008-2015.
Her invaluable and outstanding contributions have made a significant and lasting impact on our members and our union.
N/52nds Overpayment
If you are an SEIU-West member working for the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) and you receive a communication from your employer indicating that you owe them money back for an N/52nds overpayment, please:
Info Pickets
Info pickets provide an opportunity for SEIU-West members to send a message to their employer and to the general public, that bargaining needs to progress and SEIU-West members deserve a fair contract!
Janice Platzke Receives Larry Hubich Lifetime of Service Award
We are so excited to announce that your SEIU-West Treasurer, Janice Platzke, received the Larry Hubich Lifetime of Service Award at the 2024 Saskatchewan Federation of Labour Convention in late October. Congratulations, Janice!
Here's what her nominator had to say about Janice and her years of service:
Young Workers Present: Shining A Light On…Service Animals
Young Workers Present: Shining A Light On…Service Animals
Win of the Week! May 27 – June 2
This week we are celebrating the successful pay raise Support Workers at Elmwood Group Homes (EGH) achieved through their solidarity and commitment to fairness! Their win at the bargaining table has been resonating through many news articles across several provinces in Canada! We are proud of their enormous achievement and we congratulate them on their accomplishment.
The solidarity and strength of our members at EGH has been remarkable; these Support Workers are People Who Care. Support Workers at EGH, in an effort to assist other Community Based Organizations (CBOs) are hosting a Community BBQ this week. It’s a Thank You BBQ celebrating the successful bargaining process and highlights the need to support other CBOs. For the upcoming BBQ on June 11, all donations will go to the Saskatoon Sexual Assault & Information Centre who have recently cut services due to funding shortfalls. EGH Support Workers demonstrate true solidarity and we’re proud to call them members of our SEIU-West family.
Joint Bargaining Update from SEIU-West, CUPE, and SGEU: May 28
Your SEIU-WEST, CUPE and SGEU bargaining coalition met on May 22 and 23rd in Saskatoon with SAHO.
The overall theme of this session is disappointment. SAHO and the Government of Saskatchewan are focused on concessions within the Extended Health and Dental plan for health care providers, and your Unions are not interested in allowing concessions in any form.
During a week when the Government of Saskatchewan has given a 3.5% wage increase to elected politicians and provided additional funding for legislative secretaries, we believe it is morally and strategically questionable that they would be coming after health benefits for health care workers!
Our members’ stance of No Cuts, No Roll Backs and No Concessionscontinues to provide direction to your bargaining committees. We maintain the position that health care providers should be treated with respect and paid what we are worth.
Wage discussions have been deferred at this point. While we seem to be close on some issues, outstanding items are the surplus and continued funding of our Extended Health and Dental Plan and workload language. The unions support each other by proposing each union have similar language regarding workload. As we all know workload is a systemic issue within the health care system.
Future dates to continue negotiations are being confirmed. We strongly encourage all of our members to contact their elected MLA to voice their support for the bargaining team and a fair and equitable collective agreement. Your unwavering support is what drives us.
In Solidarity,
SEIU-West, CUPE and SGEU
MEDIA RELEASE: Support Workers Ratify Tentative Agreement
Support Workers Ratify Tentative Agreement
Win of the Week! May 20 – 26
For this week, SEIU-West wants to acknowledge our amazing members who entered their game slogans to win tickets to the RUSH home game on May 26th. We had many entries and it was hard to pick the best two. In the spirit of #purplehasfun, this shows just how creative and entertaining our members can be!
The two winning slogans are:
You can look North, South, East, but we who belong to SEIU-West know that the RUSH are the best!!!!!!
Let’s go purple! Let’s go green! Let’s stand together! Let’s make a scene!
Runner up slogans from our members:
We’re purple, they’re green and together you’ll hear us scream!
In the SEIU-West, the RUSH are the Best!
Don’t RUSH our union, it’s the best! Gooooo SEIU-West!
SEIU-West, RUSHes to the Rescue!
I get a RUSH when I hear SEIU-West!
SEIU-West will never RUSH for a fair contract!
Thank you everyone for participating in our ticket give-away!
If you don’t want to miss out on our contests and updates, remember to sign up for our text messaging alerts by texting the words SEIU to the number 52267!
Win of the Week! May 13-19
SEIU-West wants to acknowledge the incredible efforts members have taken to demand quality health care in Saskatchewan. They’ve met with, called, and written their MLAs while also encouraging their communities to do so. Over 1400 SEIU-West and community members signed and collected postcards that were delivered to the Minister of Finance on May 11, and more still are being collected! These postcards have a message to the Minister of Finance – stop the rollbacks and cuts to our public health care services! Members are organizing meetings, rallies, and building relationships with community members and organizations who understand the need to act. Your actions are making a difference – together, we can stop the cuts and ensure our health care is properly staffed and prioritized. We’re stronger together!
MEDIA RELEASE: Properly Funded Health Care, Wish You Were Here
Properly Funded Health Care, Wish You Were Here…
Win of the Week! May 6-12
SEIU-West recently held Technical Course on Investigations & Progressive Discipline courses for member leaders who currently hold unit positions. This advanced course was designed and facilitated by SEIU-West representatives who worked alongside our trained member-facilitators who ensured the material was delivered well. Last week, we held two courses in Saskatoon and this week we’re hosting the course in both Swift Current and Moose Jaw! We’ve received rave reviews from the attendees – hear what some members had to say:
Some of our course participants!
“I was impressed with the practical scenarios to work through throughout the day.”
“This was an excellent course loaded with helpful information!”
“It was very enlightening and educational. I will walk away today with a better understanding of the proper procedures.”
We are delighted to hear that our member leaders are all the more prepared to effectively represent their coworkers in the workplace.
President’s Message: Recognize & Celebrate Nursing Week
President’s Message: Recognize & Celebrate Nursing Week
Win of the Week! April 29 – May 5
In a recent labour board decision, SEIU-West demonstrated our commitment to due process and fair representation of our membership – SEIU-West is proud of our history which includes our devotion to fair process that is accessible for all and our due diligence as we work to meet the responsibility of member representation.
Resilience and Women: Elmwood Group Homes Support Workers
Resilience and Women: Elmwood Group Homes Support Workers
Joint Health Provider Bargaining Update from SEIU-West, SGEU, and CUPE: April 27
Your SGEU, SEIU-West, and CUPE health care bargaining committees met with SAHO on April 24 and 25 in Regina to continue our work to achieve a fair and equitable collective agreement for our members.
This was an epic session as we finished our last meeting at April 26 at 1:30 am. The bargaining committee members remain committed to ensuring that your rights and benefits remain intact as we move through the transition of the new Saskatchewan Health Authority. Our work is complicated by the fact that two of SAHO’s lead negotiators are retiring at the end of April, and we do not know who will take over bargaining.
Since the April 10 provincial budget announcement, we have seen a number of initiatives introduced that affect our members in a most direct way. Government and the employer say they are ‘works in progress’ as we don’t have much information at this time.
Some regional IT services are going to be transferred to eHealth. While the SHA doesn’t have much direct and clear information, your unions are committed to ensuring that we see our members treated fairly in this transfer and that IT members receive recognition for their skill, rights and benefits under their collective agreements. We will be meeting with SHA and eHealth to demand basic information such as how many employees will be affected; what classifications will be transferred; and what the transfer process will look like.
The SHA also announced a province-wide review of security services. We are aware that numerous reviews have been previously conducted, on both a regional and facility perspective, but never acted upon. We are cautious about the anticipated outcomes of this review and have reached out to our partners and allies in other areas and provinces who’ve been subjected to a security service review. We support our security officers throughout the province in making sure their voices, experiences and advice are taken into account in the planning of a seamless security service in rural and urban settings.
Our bargaining session saw us exchange a number of proposals that reinforced to the Employers that our Extended Health and Enhanced Dental (EHD) plan is a valued benefit and source of pride for our members. The provider unions have worked to ensure the financial health of the plan and quality of benefits for our members and we are not willing to jeopardize the plan we worked so hard to get. SAHO and the Government of Saskatchewan want to use the surplus that the plan has earned to reduce their amount of contributions to the plan, but they do not want to commit to maintaining the current status of the plan once those funds are depleted. The provider unions insist the plan be administered solely for the benefit of YOU as the beneficiaries.
We believe we have made significant progress regarding language to work together to address recruitment and retention issues in all of our classifications and facilities; we have an agreement in principle on interpersonal violence leave provisions that will see access to other paid leaves in our collective agreements; we are close to finalizing a specific process to identify and resolve workload issues for our members and provisions for electronic callback (specific to CUPE).
Issues still outstanding are the creation of a steering committee to establish a proper joint trusteeship over all of our benefit plans; joint recruitment and retention initiatives for employees; and a moratorium on changing bargaining unit structures. This last item is of benefit to our members so that we can work to implement this agreement and build a bargaining association that will guide our provincial work together. And, of course, other issues that have not been resolved include negotiations over monetary provisions regarding professional fees, the status of funding for our EHD plan; and general wage increases.
We have offered dates for further bargaining in May.
As we approach the National Day of Mourning on April 28, for workers who have been killed or injured on the job, we ask you to pause and remember to work safely, recognize when your colleagues may be struggling with a workplace injury and encourage your co-workers to work in a manner that allows them to return home safely and soundly.
In Solidarity,
SEIU-WEST, SGEU, and CUPE Bargaining Committees