MAHCP strike deadline looms

WINNIPEG — Thousands of public health-care workers could be on the picket lines for the first time in three decades if last-minute negotiations fail to reach an agreement Friday morning.

Jason Linklater, president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, which represents 7,000 allied health workers, said Thursday that the final issues to resolve in the last hours of bargaining were retention and recruitment, including salary proposals.

“We’re going to continue to work towards a deal that meets the needs of allied health professionals right to the 11th hour, if necessary,” Linklater said.

“I will to the last moment remain hopeful we can get a deal in place.”

A strike was averted two years ago when a five-year deal was reached, but much of it was retroactive and the union has been without a contract for about a year.

The union, which represents workers in numerous areas, including a wide range of technologists and technicians, paramedics, physiotherapists, dietitians, occupational therapists and physiotherapists, midwives, pharmacists, audiologists and social workers, has been bargaining since April.

While Linklater wouldn’t be specific on monetary demands, he did note that the workers he represents currently have lower wages than their counterparts in other provinces and unions in many of those jurisdictions are already in bargaining for increased wages.

A Shared Health spokesman said in a statement it “remains committed to bargaining in good faith to reach a fair agreement for our province’s professional technical/paramedical sector employees.

“We remain hopeful an agreement will be reached. Essential service agreements are being reviewed to ensure safe patient/resident/client care.”

Doctors Manitoba is warning physicians that a strike could lead to hundreds of surgeries being cancelled and negatively impact diagnostic testing and other services.

“An essential services agreement is in place to protect urgent/emergent services, but it’s likely elective procedures would be affected,” a notice on the organization’s website says.

“We have been informed unofficially that 800 surgeries could be cancelled as a start and an unknown number of diagnostic (tests). Physicians who work in RHA health facilities are encouraged to closely monitor for updates about potential impacts to their work.”

In a statement, Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook pointed out more than 1,000 allied health positions are vacant across the province and “allied health professionals are the backbone of our health-care system, yet the NDP has no plan to retain them.”

“If a strike happens, it will impact patient care and make surgical and diagnostic wait times worse,” she said.

During question period, when asked about the possibility of a strike, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said “all Manitobans can rest assured that there are plans to keep essential health care in place.”

Meanwhile, Linklater said it doesn’t help when the employers — Shared Health, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and other regional health authorities — create shifts under essential services agreements with what he called “a reprehensible disregard for safe scheduling that impacts patient-staff safety.”

He said one example brought to the union’s attention is scheduling people for seven 12-hour shifts, with 12 hours on call between shifts, for seven days in a row.

“(It) effectively (is) forcing the situation where a person may not be able to sleep for seven days,” Linklater said.

“That’s not only reckless, it isn’t safe.”

Linklater said another example is the RHA trying to increase casual and part-time staffing to the point where levels would be higher during the strike than before.

“It is an absolute attack on employees,” he said. “(A strike) is the only method available to demonstrate their impact on the system.

“When I found out this was occurring I immediately contacted government and they did take swift action to instruct that this type of employer behaviour stop.”

» Winnipeg Free Press