Listen to this article
Estimated 2 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.
The Hospital Employees’ Union (HEU) says long-term care and assisted living residents will benefit from a new collective agreement that aims to better recruit and retain staff in those facilities.
Ideally, the union says, improved staffing will result in improved care.
More than 5,000 unionized workers in eligible long-term care and assisted living facilities will transition to the provincewide Facilities Collective Agreement over the next two years, giving them higher wages and improved benefits, according to B.C. Health Minister Josie Osborne.
This comes after wages were cut by 15 per cent under the former Liberal government in 2004.
Lynn Bueckert, with the Hospital Employees’ Union — which represents 60,000 hospital, clinic and long-term care facility workers — said the policies of past B.C. Liberal governments encouraged “privatization and subcontracting, allowing operators to opt out of the provincewide collective agreements.”
She described the agreement this week as “historic.”
“It’s a huge moment of a big win for seniors care in British Columbia,” she told CBC’s The Early Edition. “It’s also a big moment for thousands of health-care workers, mainly women [and] racialized workers in B.C.”
The Early Edition5:46New agreement aims to stabilize seniors’ care in B.C.
B.C.’s Health Ministry says a new province-wide agreement will bring together health-care workers, government, and employers to improve staffing and care quality for seniors. Lynn Bueckert from the Hospital Employees’ Union explains what this could mean for front-line workers and families.
Osborne says the new agreement will cost the province $85 million.
The agreement affects workers at more than 100 facilities that are part of the Health Employers Association of B.C. and where at least 50 per cent of the beds are publicly funded.
Bueckert says the agreement is an “important step toward restoring a level playing field” for workers and residents at provincially funded care homes.
“This is a retention and recruitment issue,” she said. “It’s so important that workers have fair working conditions.”
If facilities can retain staff, she said, patients and their families will no longer see care switching between workers.
“What families are going to see is a continuity of care,” Bueckert said.
Osborne acknowledged the agreement does not cover facilities that receive less than 50 per cent of government funding, saying there is “more work to do.”
The agreement is subject to ratification votes, which are expected to conclude by Dec. 20.
link
