In our most recent update, we had identified to our SEIU-West members that vacation banks, time in lieu banks and stat/pro-stat banks would be posted in your workplaces by the end of March. Unfortunately, it was only recently brought to our attention that this did not happen

For Immediate Release
April 5, 2023

Saskatchewan—In what seems to be an attempt to ignore the legitimate concerns of the largest classification of union members in the health care sector, Minister Everett Hindley declared in a legislative committee that Continuing Care Assistants (CCAs) don’t deserve any retention initiatives because they are paid to do the job they do, and that’s retention enough.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) and SEIU-West have resolved the outstanding grievances filed in response to the Proof of Vaccination/Monitored Testing Program.

2017 Year in Review!

Like the incessant high-pitched buzz of a mosquito in the darkness of a summer’s night, try as you might, slapping yourself silly, the mosquito triumphs, until such time as you turn on the light in order to quash its very existence.

Like a reoccurring cold, yet another virus has wielded its head. There is no defending against this plague, as you’re aware of its imminent arrival, one is simply not given an itinerary.

Sick time usage.

Health-care services should not be publicly undermined. Health-care workers should stay home when sick.

A hospital setting is hardly a place for ill employees, as it compromises patient safety.

But, alas, the court of public opinion will take the spotlight once again. The plague of sick time usage will have its day in the sun, and the critics will have their 15 minutes of fame.

What they neglect to speak about though is the lack of safety in the health-care environment. In particular, the cause of the injuries has so much to do with the insufficient staffing levels and the ‘attendance management’ strategies where management push the ill to attend work to the detriment of infection control.

When will the conversation change to acknowledge the source of the problem? Sadly, we wait for this to occur and it never does.

Yet, eventually, the hype will settle down, things return to normal, until one day, the python strikes again. It’s venom, enough to make you ill.

Martin Been

Saskatoon

Published in The Star Phoenix, Dec 22, 2017

Letters to the editor, December 22, 2017

Unions launch People Who Care website – just in time for the holiday season

Irony in Justice?

Unsafe Staffing is Making Us Sick

This is our year-end Holiday/Christmas newsletter and I cannot believe how much we have done together as a union over the last twelve months! If you want to see this in Technicolor, check out SEIU-West 2017 Year in Review on YouTube.

December 10 – Human Rights Day

Minister of Finance’s Shell Game

Click here for a printable PDF of SEIU-West/SAHO Bargaining Update – No. 10

Greetings Sisters and Brothers,

Your SEIU-West bargaining committee and our coalition partners, CUPE and SGEU, met with SAHO for five days in Saskatoon (November 23 – 27).

We continued to advance the message that members have shared with us:

NO Cuts, NO Rollbacks, Pay Us What We’re Worth! Treat US With Respect!

We believe the communications that members have sent to government MLAs, the Minister of Health and the Minister of Finance reinforce the message we are delivering to SAHO.

However, there is a large stumbling block when it comes to joint trusteeship of the EHB (Extended Health & Enhanced Dental Benefits) plan. SAHO wants the health services provider unions to agree to let the Employers stop paying the premiums into the plan for a period of time but they are unwilling to commit to the unions becoming joint trustees of the plan, like for our pension plan. We are not agreeable to put the EHB plan at risk.

Another significant stumbling block was the Employers’ monetary offer over the proposed length of the term of the Collective Agreement. There are other issues that remain unresolved as well.

At the end of this session, the parties agreed we were not going to reach agreement on all the issues at this time. The parties had agreed previously that if our without prejudice talks were unsuccessful each union would return to their individual bargaining table to resume formal bargaining. Your SEIU-West bargaining committee will be setting future bargaining dates for our individual table with SAHO. SAHO indicated that the government mandate of a cut of 3.5% to compensation remains on the table.

While we would like to thank all of our members who have shared our message with their employers, SAHO and the government – redouble your efforts. We need your voices to reinforce that cuts and rollbacks are not acceptable. Help us to eliminate the cuts and concessions that the government has put on our shoulders; call your MLA, send an email, ask for a meeting. Ensure that your emails are copied to the Minister of Health and the Minister of Finance. Tell them they need to change their mandate. Tell them we cannot provide patient first health care services if the Government and SAHO continue to put us last!

If you would like assistance writing a letter to the editor or to your MLA, please email us at [email protected]

We encourage you to contact the MRC at 1-888-999-7348 ext. 2298 to ask any further questions. Please watch for updates on our website. You can also follow our Facebook and Twitter feeds.

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; Simone Corriveau; 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

Well, this is our last update on the questions/answers we received from our virtual town hall meetings in September. I have to say that there were a lot of really thought-provoking questions that have guided some of the deliberations of the bargaining committee(these are continued from the Oct. 13, Oct. 17, Oct. 24, Oct. 30, and Nov. 21 posts).

23. If there’s a wage reduction of 3.5% what would they do with the money? – Shelagh, Saskatoon.

The government of Saskatchewan is looking to reduce their budget deficit and are looking in every place they can think of to make reductions. The problem with that strategy, is that they do not take into account the incredible recruitment and retention issues that we have in health care (or education or anywhere else in the public service). The health care system is very labour intensive, and so we need the skilled, qualified, professionals in house to do this work. The money would be used to reduce the provincial deficit and not remedy health care issues like workload or short staffing; this is the short answer to your question.

24. Can Family Illness leave get changed to 3 personal days that can be used for any purpose? –Nelson, Swift Current.

That hasn’t been an identified priority in our discussions with members, the bargaining surveys or the bargaining conference that SEIU-West conducted. While there are members who would like that, it would not be a top priority identified by the bargaining committee to take ‘illness’ out of the requirement for Family Illness Leave. The Union has had success in defending our current interpretation and application of the benefit to the benefit of our members.

25. Why doesn’t the health district hire back people who have retired? – Doreen, Saskatoon.

Well, in some cases they do – depending on the need and the recruitment issues the employer(s) are experiencing. But this is also a cost-saving measure on the part of the employer: if they wait the 120 days until after retirement, then the individual member will no longer be able to maintain seniority, sick leave credits, vacation rate, and certain benefits, for example extended health benefits, and has to start earning them all over again like a new employee.

26. The MLA’s should walk a 12 hour shift in the shoes of front line workers, maybe then negotiations will go more smoothly. – Connie, retired member.

That’s a brilliant idea! And we’ve been putting out invitations to Walk a Day in Our Shoes to the Minister of Health, assorted MLA’s, and even the CEO of Saskatoon Health Region was invited to do this. Incredibly, they don’t appear to have the time! We video these so that we can share them broadly with the public so that they get a bird’s eye view of the work our members do, as well as the person doing the shadowing.

We’ve done this once before in the Community Based Organization (CBO) sector and filmed it and put it on our website. But the health regions aren’t wild about us filming the experience in their facilities…even though SEIU-West would pay for it!

We’ve tried to do this in long term care, the labs, and acute care…but no luck.

We’ve offered to have me shadow a Medical Laboratory Technologist, but they aren’t taking us up on the offer. I was able to go on a tour – not a job shadow – for our tradesmen in Saskatoon and that was an incredible eye opener.
If decision-makers only knew the miles that health care workers put on in a day; if they only knew about the challenges in every interaction and pressures of short staffing…then maybe there would be an investment in the health care system’s staff who keep it running every day.

But we won’t stop, just because we’ve been turned down a few times…this is important and needs to be showcased for the public!

27. When the new health region takes place…will I have the ability to bid on jobs province wide? – Shanelle, Biggar.

That is the plan. What the health care provider unions are trying to finalize is how your seniority will be treated in non-SEIU-West jurisdictions.

We want to ensure that you keep your SEIU-West hours based seniority; and if you bid outside of our jurisdiction, there is a formula that we have used to change your hours based seniority into a date of hire seniority. We haven’t locked this down yet in our bargaining process or with the Transition Team for the new Health region; it’s a work in progress.

28. What does SAHO or the government say about more privatization of services? – Meredith, Saskatoon.

Lately they haven’t been saying too much.

In the past, the former Minister of Health, Dustin Duncan, indicated that the government believed health care was only about hands-on services. But then he never expanded on that idea and now he is no longer the Minister of Health.

There are no business cases moving forward right now to look at contracted out options because all focus is on getting the new Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) up and running on December 4.

There is a strong case to be made against further privatization of services: private services cost the health system, and government more money; there has been incredible concerns about the quality and consistency of the private service; private services do not reduce waitlists; and there is a question about whether or not private services fall within The Canada Public Health Act.

But I don’t think this strategy has hit the dust bin…it will rear its head again.

29. Is there some way they can tell us what the cost of labour is without including managerial staff? – Jacquelin, Saskatoon.

I believe those numbers are reflected in the annual reports, but only in really broad terms. If you are looking for a breakdown, SHR’s website has a budget breakdown that shows a graph with some really broad information about where their funding comes from; how it is spent; and the groups of staff that are attracting salary. There are likely the same annual reports available for each health region on their websites. But there are no specific breakdowns available publicly for what you are looking for as far as we know.

30. What are we doing about LPN’s being laid off and replaced with RN’s? – Jenna, Saskatoon.

Where LPN’s have been laid off and replaced with RN’s, we are following the layoff language and options under the collective agreement and making sure that our members have access to all their rights. (We also have situations where RNs have been laid off and replaced with LPNs.)

The challenge that we are faced with is that SALPN and SRNA have differing opinions on what skills and abilities that each classification are able to perform. They are the regulatory bodies for LPNs and RNs and have not necessarily come to agreement – nor have they been regularly consulted on what skills and advanced competencies LPNs are able to perform.

31. I would like a detailed breakdown of Employer’s currently outstanding bargaining proposals. –John, Saskatoon.

Please take a look at bargaining update no. 3 where we list the Employer’s bargaining proposals. These were presented on our first day of bargaining in May and there has been movement since then.
We don’t share our proposals publicly because such actions would inhibit negotiations, could be considered an Unfair Labour Practice (ULP) and bargaining in the public realm. All those things delay meaningful bargaining and make the process last a very long time.

32. Is the union proposing language to prohibit breaking full-time (FT) positions into part-time (PT) positions? How does this save money? – Holly, Saskatoon.

We already have language that talks about this: Letter of Intent #1 at page 202 of the current Collective Agreement talks about the employment of as many FT and PT positions as possible.

But where that letter of intent isn’t enough, we want our members to keep the Union informed by reaching out to the Member Resource Center and our Shop Stewards with their information. In addition to this, we have proposed language that would strengthen the workload reporting language to our OHS committees.

33. There are casuals who won’t pick up more shifts in a month. Would that help the understaffing situation? – Melissa, Watson.

There are any number of reasons that a casual won’t pick up more shifts: they might already have another job; they are pre-booked at another job; they might have a limit on the number of hours they can work; the workload might be so heavy they are afraid of getting hurt. The Collective Agreement has language to address what to do where a casual employee is consistently unavailable for call-in work.

We believe properly staffing the facilities in the first place to reduce the dependence on casual employees would improve the situation.

I remember when overtime (OT) in my facility was a rarity; I could count on one hand how many times OT was used in a year! But now, OT is relied on as a way to avoid recruiting new staff

Understaffing has become chronic in part because our health regions aren’t funded properly. We need legislation and leadership on safe staffing levels in order to not only get us back to providing the quality of care we know we can, but also to address the illness and injury levels in our health care system. Short staffing is a contributing factor to those issues.

34. Is there any back-pay expected to come to us as of March 31st? – Barb, Rosthern.

That really depends on what sort of monetary settlement that our members agree to. If there are 0%…then there would be no back-pay. If there is any sort of an increase, then we would absolutely bargain for retroactivity.

35. There were rumours that there was going to be a retirement buy-out. Is this true and if it is, how much would it be? – Linda, Shaunavon.

I haven’t heard those rumors nor have any of the employers approached SEIU-West about this. At this point, I would say that it isn’t true.

36. Is there any talk in negotiations to address notice of cancellation for overtime? – Tammy, Biggar.

This has become a constant issue in health care: members are called into work, the member identifies that its overtime, they agree to work and then the overtime is cancelled. We are currently dealing with a number of grievances on this issue and we are looking to advance a test case to arbitration.

37. Scheduling errors: call out procedures are too complicated; there are too many rules – can this be simplified? – Suzanne, Harris.

I once had the opportunity to spend a couple hours watching a scheduler go about the process of trying to fill shifts…it’s mind-boggling the number of hoops that managers set out for the process of calling in staff, let alone if it’s an overtime shift! My hat is off to all the schedulers out there.

In some health regions, there is an electronic call out process that goes to everyone’s mobile device. In other health regions, there is the traditional call process. But in all health regions, the rules set out have to follow the collective agreement. The opportunity is for first part-time then casual to accept offers of work.

We do recognize that call-in is challenging and we have committed to have a discussion with the employers and SAHO about how we can address those concerns and still give our members the right and opportunity to expand their hours.

38. Why is there a hiring freeze but they continue to hire management? –Pattie, Watrous.

I like this question, but I simply cannot tell you what is going on in the employers’ minds when they do this. I really wish I could!

The Employer says the hiring freeze is so that they can save some money on their budgets. We have been told that where there is a hard to recruit position, they will address the hiring of a staff member on a case-by-case basis. Employers are not obligated to consult with the Union when they decide to hire managers, but if you want to share the details with us, we can ask some questions and try to get you an answer.

Well, folks, that brings us to the end of our virtual town hall Q & A updates.

Your SEIU-West bargaining committee is going back to the table from November 23- 27.

As I have said before (and will say again!) your support, engagement and ideas help keep the bargaining committee going. We continue to ask you to contact your MLAs; to tell them how a 3.5 % reduction would affect you and your family how it would impact your ability to live and work in Saskatchewan. Tell your MLAs that this is a recruitment and retention issue and they need to stand up and support health care workers. And, when you send that message, copy the Minister of Health, Jim Reiter…I’m pretty sure he needs to hear from all of you!

This outreach is working, we are seeing movement at our bargaining table and we need to get everyone involved in talking with your MLA’s…this isn’t just about bargaining, this is about keeping Saskatchewan’s health system, along with the dedicated health care providers, alive and thriving!

Should you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact the Member Resource Center (MRC) at 1-888-999-7348 Ext 2298.

In Solidarity, on behalf of the SEIU-West bargaining committee,

Barbara Cape
President, SEIU-West

Click here for a printable PDF file of bargaining update #9.

Greetings Sisters and Brothers,

As indicated in our bargaining update #8, the health care provider unions (SEIU-West, CUPE and SGEU) have continued to share their ongoing concerns with the recent roll-out of provincial reviews of the Joint Job Evaluation Maintenance Committee (JJEMC) as they relate to education program changes. This was a priority in our discussions during our last bargaining session.

We are pleased to report that we have reached agreement with SAHO that the Committee of the Parties (COPS) will be responsible for a comprehensive review of the provincial JJE plan relative to all plan factors: decision making, education, experience, independent judgement, work relationships, impact of actions, leadership/supervision, sensory demand, physical demand, and environment. We do not how know how long this process will take so there is further agreement that the JJEMC will continue to do their provincial reviews.

While this comprehensive review is taking place, there is agreement that where a provincial review indicates a decrease in the pay band – the current rates, including any market supplements or adjustments, will remain in place for incumbents and any new hires until the comprehensive review of the JJE plan is completed and the JJEMC has finalized its factor ratings and resultant decision.   Upon conclusion of the final comprehensive review all of the factors by COPS and if the subsequent JJEMC review indicates a decrease in the pay band, the incumbents, including those members who were hired after the date of the release of initial JJEMC review, will maintain their original pay band. There will be a three month delay (prior to implementation) so as to allow the parties to determine if a market adjustment is needed for newly hired employees.

Finally where the JJEMC provincial review identifies an education skill factor change and there is an increase in the classification pay band, the parties have agreed that the pay band change will be implemented as per the collective agreement.

We would like to thank all of our members who have assisted in conveying the message to their employers, SAHO and the government about this important issue; your voices empowered us to reach this agreement. We encourage you to contact the MRC at 1-888-999-7348 ext 2298 to ask any further questions of clarification to determine if this affects your classification directly.

Coalition bargaining (involving SEIU-West, CUPE and SGEU) continues from November 23 in Saskatoon to November 27. We continue to seek your help to get the attention of our Government about changing their regressive mandate. As we have asked before – and we will keep asking – call your MLA, send an email, ask for a meeting. Tell them how they seriously need to change their mandate. Tell them we cannot provide patient first health care services if the Government and SAHO continue to put us last! If you would like assistance writing a letter to the editor or to your MLA, please email us at [email protected]

Please watch for updates on our website. You can also visit our Facebook page and Twitter account.

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; Simone Corriveau; 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

We know that SEIU-West members have hearts of gold. We see it in the jobs they do, the stories they tell, and the actions they take. We see purple out there helping communities every day.