A score of Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) healthcare workers in Melville are slated for pink slips or will get their work hours reduced. And that has the union questioning the moves, motives and measures that will see 18 positions affected.
Positions include four Licensed Practical Nurses, three of whom will be laid off and one who will have reduced hours. Nine special care aids will be laid off as well as one cook with another put on reduced hours.
One main service work will receive a pink slip with another on reduced hours while the axe will also fall on one environmental service position. Hours will also be reduced for a health records worker.
Across Sunrise Health Region (SHR) 53 staffed positions are facing layoffs or reductions in hours and 13 vacancies will not be filled as a result of the mandate from the SHR to balance its budget, and the job cuts will come despite these CUPE members being listed by the provincial government as 'essential' and forbidden to take job action.
These cuts to frontline staff, a lengthy delay in receiving details of the cuts, and reducing beds anger CUPE Local 4980
president Pearl Blommaert.
"We were advised at the end of June that there would be impacts on our members as per our collective agreement. However it did not give any details as to number of staff affected in terms of layoffs.
"In my time as president of this union local I have never seen such a lack of information. Then suddenly at the end of August there was a flurry of activity and our members started to receive layoff notices. And I can say that no other health region is being affected this much
in terms of cuts to services and staff. I can also say that the drive to balance the budget is coming on the backs of our CUPE frontline health staff."
Blommaert says elsewhere in the province administration and management are shouldering more of the burden of cuts than in the SHR.
"In Saskatoon administration positions and management positions are having a corresponding reduction, as they have fewer beds and in some cases staff, so they are reducing them. It also makes sense from a dollar perspective, as you can save a lot more money reducing a management position than a frontline worker," Blommaert says.
She adds, frontline staff and the union were not consulted on how savings could be made.
"Why are the other regions not like here? Why were we singled out for layoffs? Management says there were five positions in management eliminated but we don't know if that was attrition or if that is just hours of work and we beg for a better explanation," Blommaert says.
She believes if cuts have to be made everyone should share the burden, not just CUPE members, and she is very angry her members are being made to carry the weight of the cuts.
"It really is a question of balance. In Melville we have not seen any managers affected or even be made to work fewer hours. By comparison 18 of our positions are being impacted including people losing their jobs.
"Why should managers not be affected by the fact we will have fewer staff in Melville and fewer beds?"
Blommaert says her members and other frontline workers know the system and where efficiencies could have been made.
"Give us some say as we know the situation the best. The consequences of management are exclusively falling on us and there is no way to control (the situation). It's not fair," Blommaert says.
She also says her members are going to feel further effects of the
budget balancing measures.
"The SHR is reducing sick time and overtime without consulting our membership. SHR is really not an employer of choice for a lot of people here."
Blommaert feels the SHR is targeting front line staff in other ways to balance the budget.
"They (the SHR) are adding insult to injury. It took us so long to get a
new contract, with modest increases in wages, now they suggest we need to be the route to balance the budget with layoffs and work reductions. Then on top of that they expect us to pay for parking. It does not matter if it's serviced or un-serviced lots we are all paying."
Blommeart feels at a time of economic prosperity these cuts should not be happening especially to workers the SaskParty government has deemed essential'.
"I have a couple of questions I want to ask the government. The first is every one of the people laid off affected in the SHR was deemed to be an 'essential service' and we could not operate without them meaning they are not allowed to strike but it's perfectly all right to lay them off? Why?
"I would also like to know why these layoffs and cuts are happening when we are supposedly booming."
