SASKATOON — Members of both bargaining teams of the Service Employees International Union West and the Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations Inc. return to the bargaining table later this month for another round of bargaining talks.
SEIU-West President Lisa Zunti and Carla Saworski will be part of the group representing the healthcare workers when they again meet with their SAHO counterparts, with the hopes of finally ending more than two years of having no collective agreement.
Zunti, who was elected during SEIU-West’s convention in Saskatoon three months ago, and Saworski joined other healthcare workers as they resumed their information picket outside St. Paul’s Hospital on Thursday, Aug. 7.
Zunti, a licensed practical nurse, said that although she is still new to being part of SEIU West’s bargaining team, she is ready to continue to push for the demands that the previous leadership, under former President Barb Cape, had been fighting for.
Zunti said SAHO, representing the Saskatchewan government, has committed only two days for them to meet, which is expected to be on Aug. 29 and 30, Friday and Saturday. They are hopeful that something positive can come out of this meeting.
“I am hoping that the government sees that no contract equals unhappy workers, equals people leaving the system, equals longer wait times and less accessible health care for the public. I'm hoping they will bring some meaningful proposals to the table to move things forward,” she said.
“There has been no real indication of any compromise or potential compromise thus far. I hope that they see this is not good for the people of this province who are accessing healthcare, so that they will end this as quickly as possible.”
Zunti added that they are not sure what their next move would be if both parties remain without an agreement, and their leadership will decide after the talks later this month. However, they are preparing themselves to do some job action.
Saworski, a medical laboratory technologist, said they felt that healthcare workers are not an essential part of the province’s healthcare after SAHO came a year late to the bargaining table after their collective agreement expired in April 2023. SAHO met them in September 2024.
“We kept asking them [SAHO]. SO, I'm not sure that we don't feel we're important. We want them to show up at the bargaining table with genuine proposals on what they can do for us. We've moved to the bargaining table,” she said.
“We've dropped lots of stuff to try to get a deal. It's really hard to meet with SAHO, because they are one committee, meeting with three different unions, and we don't get a lot of time. I don't know if they understand. If they don't care. Or they have a hard mandate.”
Saworski added that, aside from fighting for a fair wage increase, they wanted SAHO to come to the table with a collective agreement beneficial for both parties, and not just pick what would work to their advantage. They are also against the staffing plans they want to implement.
“They want to have the ability to move people around the province. You could show up for work in Saskatoon one day, and you're going to North Battlefield the next. That affects childcare. You're not going to get people to stay and work in healthcare with that kind of thing,” she said.
“One other issue they want to change is our call-in rules. They want to be able to say, ‘You're casual. I can book you wherever I want, whenever I want.’ We're not going to get people to stay in healthcare for that. We want something better than that. We want to keep our call-in system.”
