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:
April 30th Claims Submission Deadline for Extended Health Care and Dental Claims
2019 Claims Submission Deadline is April 30, 2020
Health and/or dental expenses incurred from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019 must be submitted to Canada Life (Great-West Life) by April 30, 2020.
To be considered for payment, claims must be received by Canada Life or be post-marked on or before April 30, 2020.
Canada Life GroupNet for Plan Members is a fast and easy way to submit your claims before the deadline. Electronic submission will ensure your claim arrives on time and it won’t get lost in the mail!
For more information on extended health care and dental benefits, you may contact Canada Life toll free at 1-866-408-0213.
SAHO/SEIU-West Bargaining Bulletin (2nd edition) No. 12
Click here to download SAHO/SEIU-West Bargaining Bulletin (2nd edition) No. 12
Date: March 3, 2020
Greetings Sisters and Brothers,
Your SEIU-West bargaining committee met on February 25 – 28 to bargain with SAHO.
We had some challenging and interesting discussions about innovative thinking, collective bargaining principles and what do our members value. During the course of these negotiations, both SAHO and the union exchanged proposal packages.
SAHO has included in their proposal package an issue that would affect all three health care provider unions and the negotiated outcome would be a shared one. The challenge that the parties face is that SEIU-West is currently engaged in negotiations with the intent to conclude our collective agreement. CUPE and SGEU have already concluded their collective bargaining with the Employer. We are considering various options on how to manage this process and still reach a tentative agreement that your bargaining committee can recommend to you.
We are adamant in insisting that all health providers’ work is valuable to the overall success of the health care team. Our work as a team creates a better health outcome for our patients, clients and residents. It’s important to ensure that the employer understands the value of our members and respects the work they do, because that isn’t something people always hear. We can understand, however, that there can be a sense of frustration among us all when the bargaining process takes so long. The SEIU-West bargaining committee hears the input and shares the questions our members ask as another way to keep our focus on what matters to our membership.
We have set a number of dates into April in order to continue our work towards a tentative agreement that our members can accept.
Let your MLA; the Minister of Health, Jim Reiter at (306) 787-7345 or [email protected]; and the Minister of Rural and Remote Health, Warren Kaeding at (306) 798-9014 or [email protected] know that health care providers have been waiting too long for a fair deal and that an adequate monetary package is necessary to recruit and retain quality staff. Tell them to put care first and end understaffing.
In Solidarity,
Your SEIU-West SAHO Provincial Bargaining Committee:
CHR: Janice Platzke (SEIU-West Treasurer) • FHHR: Brenda Berry; Donna Gallant • HHR: Colleen Denniss • SHR: Judy Denniss; Rick Brown; Carla Saworski; Kim Wyatt; Charlene Sarafin; • Staff: Bob Laurie (Dir. of Bargaining and Contract Enforcement); Russell Doell (Deputy Dir. of Bargaining and Contract Enforcement); Cam McConnell (Negotiations Officer) • President: Barbara Cape
Media Release: Rural Access to Urban Hospitals Smoke Screen for Real ER Congestion issue: Understaffing
For Immediate Release, February 28, 2020
Saskatoon – SEIU-West members were caught off guard by the Saskatchewan Health Authority’s (SHA’s) release of conclusions from a private sector report on our hospitals.
Win of the Week! February 16- 22
Member Wins Union Leave Dispute!
SEIU-West is pleased to share another wonderful win this week! A member was recently denied union leave to take part in an SEIU-West educational. The member got in contact with the MRC and they were advised to file a grievance. The employer quickly approved the union leave without any further delay.
If you have any questions about your rights under your collective agreement – like your right to access union leave – remember to call the MRC (Member Resource Centre) at 1.888.999.7348 ext. 2298 (toll free province-wide).
There are a lot of educational’s coming up, check out www.seiuwest.ca/education for more information.
Help Support the Steps of Life!
The SEIU-West Worker Safety Committee are participating in the Steps for Life 2020 and registered the SEIU-West Worker Safety Team to walk and raise funds for the Threads of Life organization! Threads of Life supports the healing journey of families who have suffered from a workplace fatality, traumatic life-altering injury, or occupational disease. Their goal is to raise funds for this important initiative - if you can, please donate directly to the organization at our SEIU-West team page by clicking the 'donate now' button! And if you'd like to join our SEIU-West team and share in our show of support for families affected by workplace tragedy, simply click the button 'join team'! Visit our team page by clicking here.
SASWH AGM & Conference - Apply Now!
The Saskatchewan Association for Safe Workplaces in Health (SASWH) is hosting its Annual General Meeting and Education Conference on March 24, 2020 at the Queensbury Convention Centre in Regina. The SEIU-West Worker Safety Committee (WSC) is sponsoring two members to attend - expenses will be reimbursed to a maximum of one day lost wages, as well as mileage and accommodation (depending on the distance of travel).
You can apply in two ways:
You must apply by March 4, 2020 and you be notified whether you’re accepted to attend in order to book union leave.
National Human Trafficking Awareness Day 2020
Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, harboring and/or exercising control, direction or influence over the movements of a person in order to exploit that person, typically through sexual exploitation or forced labour. It is often described as a modern form of slavery.
According to Statistics Canada's latest figures:
- Cases of human trafficking soared from a couple of dozen across the country in 2010 to 340 in 2016. Because it is a crime that’s easier to hide, it is very difficult to track so these numbers are likely much higher.
- Over 90 percent of the girls being trafficked in Canada for sexual exploitation, were born here, and experts suspect there are thousands of them.
- Although they represent a mere four per cent of the population, nearly half of the trafficking victims were Indigenous women and girls.
- Girls and young women from all socio-economic backgrounds are hunted in malls, coffee shops, movie theatres, outside their schools and, increasingly, online. The victims are often too afraid or ashamed to tell anyone, or may not even realize they’re being exploited.
- The average age at which exploitation begins is 13; the average age of rescue, if a girl is rescued at all, is 17.
Given these figures, one has to wonder why there isn’t more public outcry.
It seems that this is partly due to the unfounded belief that it’s something that only happens to in big cities like Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver.
The fact that these crimes get more press coverage in those cities, doesn’t mean that they don’t happen in Saskatchewan.
This is a very real crisis that is happening right now in many communities.
Although it’s difficult to track victims across provincial and territorial borders, law enforcement has stated that there is a pattern or “city triangles” such as Saskatoon-Edmonton-Calgary, known routes along which victims are shipped that often include stops close to resource industries which have a large, transient and mainly male workforce.
If you or someone you know may be a victim, call Canada's national human trafficking hotline at 1-833-900-1010.
Other local resources available in Saskatchewan are:
Victim Services
Domestic Abuse Centres
National
National Therapeutic Recreation Month 2020
Happy National Therapeutic Recreation month! 
SEIU-West would like to thank all the hard working Therapeutic Recreation coordinators, therapists, supervisors and workers.
Cheryl is a Recreation Volunteer Coordinator at a long term facility and she loves her job because she knows that what she does makes a huge difference in the residents’ lives.
She works hard to develop and implement therapeutic recreation programs that match residents’ needs.
So let’s celebrate the important role these men and women have in patient, client and resident health care.
World Day of Social Justice 2020
Today we celebrate World Day of Social Justice with the theme ‘Closing the Inequalities Gap to Achieve Social Justice.’
In recent times the term ‘social justice’ has become synonymous with political correctness and the true meaning of the word has been lost in a flurry of twitter wars as a derogatory term. 
Although some people might think the concept is relatively new – a creation by the ‘millennials’ – the notion of social justice is based on the Christian doctrine of helping less fortunate people—the weak, sickly, and oppressed.
Since the 1920s, social democratic governments in Western Europe have reinforced the view that all citizens should be treated equally.
Society cannot be fair or just if it has different categories or types of citizenship, such as nobility and the rest of the population, whites as first class citizens and blacks as second class etc.
It must be said that the union is a great equalizer and fits perfectly with this year’s theme because the primary goal of the union is to ensure the rights of every worker are upheld, while actively fighting to ensure that existing rights are not stripped back.
This is a constant and continuing struggle.
The general public might question the necessity of unions today, unaware of the fact that they may be one enactment away from losing their pension, parental leave, minimum wage, and other hard won social benefits they take for granted.
Inequality must be reduced or eliminated by expanding opportunities for working people and working with labour unions are where the real battles are fought and won.
This World Day of Social Justice, we invite you to take a minuet to reflect on the rights we all take for granted and how they were fought for and won by ‘Social Justice Warriors’ and trade unions.
Social Justice is not a dirty word and equality is only offensive if you’re the oppressor.
SAHO/SEIU-West Bargaining Bulletin (2nd edition) No. 11
Click here to download SAHO/SEIU-West Bargaining Bulletin (2nd edition) No. 11
Date: February 19, 2020
Greetings Sisters and Brothers,
Your SEIU-West bargaining committee met with SAHO on February 13 and 14 in Saskatoon. SAHO came prepared to talk about some new concepts regarding our collective agreement in an effort to get a collective agreement that we could take to our members for a vote.
The parties identified that we have some outstanding issues. There are still unresolved issues regarding the 2010 Unfair Labour Practice and the decision of the Saskatchewan Labour Board that needs to be heard. Issues regarding union seniority as it relates to the health care providers of SEIU-West, CUPE and SGEU working under the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) as one employer, and the need to reach a tentative agreement that our members can vote on.
The parties explored a new way of looking at the issues we face with a more ‘global’ view. Some of them don’t directly impact our membership – but speak to our principles as a union. Others, like seniority, are fundamental to how members identify working within SEIU-West or the other health care provider unions. For example, how do we calculate seniority in an understandable and transparent way, and apply it within SEIU-West bargaining units and across the province.
We received a proposal package from SAHO that contained new ideas related to resolving grievances and providing education funding that the SEIU-West bargaining committee is reviewing.
The SEIU-West and SAHO bargaining committees have agreed to the dates of February 25 to 28 to meet again to bargain.
Let your MLA; the Minister of Health, Jim Reiter at (306) 787-7345 or [email protected]; and the Minister of Rural and Remote Health, Warren Kaeding at (306) 798-9014 or [email protected] know that health care providers have been waiting too long for a fair deal and that an adequate monetary package is necessary to recruit and retain quality staff. Tell them to put care first and end understaffing.
In Solidarity,
Your SEIU-West SAHO Provincial Bargaining Committee:
CHR: Janice Platzke (SEIU-West Treasurer) • FHHR: Brenda Berry; Donna Gallant • HHR: Colleen Denniss • SHR: Judy Denniss; Rick Brown; Carla Saworski; Kim Wyatt; Charlene Sarafin; • Staff: Bob Laurie (Dir. of Bargaining and Contract Enforcement); Russell Doell (Deputy Dir. of Bargaining and Contract Enforcement); Cam McConnell (Negotiations Officer) • President: Barbara Cape
Elmwood Group Homes: Bargaining Update No. 1
Elmwood Group Homes, February 13, 2020
Click here to download a printable PDF file of Elmwood Group Homes: Bargaining Update No. 1
Hello Sisters and Brothers,
The current Collective Agreement’s term is January 1, 2016 to March 31, 2019. After consultation with the membership, the Union Bargaining Committee met with the Employer from February 10 to 12, 2020, to begin negotiations to achieve a new Collective Agreement.
Celebrate Cardiology Technologist Day! 2020
Roses are red 
Violets are blue
It’s Cardio Tech Day
Let’s show them love too!
SEIU-West is proud to acknowledge and celebrate our Cardiology Technologist members this February 14.
These health care professionals like our member Oksana who works at Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon are on the front line working for the public every day.
Cardiology Technologists do the following (and so much more);
- test, monitor and assess heart performance;
- engage in difficult techniques of heart monitoring;
- ensure proper preparation for patients by explaining procedures;
- ensure patient comfort and safety during procedures; and
- provide resuscitation measures when needed.
Cardiology Technologists must also keep up to date and adapt to modernized technologies as they help to maintain health care equipment.
Watch our Cardio Tech day video to find out how Oksana’s passion for her job makes her a vital part of our public health care team.