Unionized employees with the Hospital Employees’ Association (HEU) Mariposa Gardens held a community barbecue and awareness event last Friday outside the assisted living and residential care facility in Osoyoos. More than 120 unionized workers have been working without a contract since late November. The union will be demanding increased wages and reduced workload when contract negotiations continue on April 18. (From left) Debbie Kamal Ali, from HEU’s provincial office in Burnaby, residential care aide Sherri Davenport, chair of the union’s local bargaining committee, Tammy Garbutt and Sandy Tait, a residential care aide. (Keith Lacey photo)
More than 120 unionized workers at Mariposa Gardens in Osoyoos are hoping management comes back with an improved offer when both sides meet to continue negotiations on a new contract on April 18.
The members of Hospital Employees’ Union (HEU) Mariposa Gardens have been working without a contract since their three-year deal expired at the end of November, said Tammy Garbutt, a residential care aide who is the chair of the union’s local bargaining committee, a shop steward and health and safety committee member.
Garbutt was joined outside Mariposa Gardens last Friday by Debbie Kamal Ali, a spokesperson for the HEU’s provincial office in Burnaby, for a barbecue designed to raise awareness about the fact that more than 120 workers have been working without a contract for almost four months, said Garbutt.
“We’re working under the same pay scale and same conditions as we were when our old contract expired at the end of November,” said Garbutt. “We felt it was time to hold a membership appreciation and community education event to let everyone know exactly what’s going on.”
The local union represents the vast majority of workers employed at Mariposa Gardens, including custodial, kitchen, nurses, maintenance and residential care aides, said Garbutt.
“The only people we don’t represent inside the building are doctors and management,” she said.
Kamal Ali said the membership have made it very clear that Mariposa Gardens has had a longstanding problem with retaining quality staff because of heavy workloads and insufficient wages compared to the rest of the industry.
“The biggest issue is workload,” she said. “This place has had terrible problems with recruitment and retention because there aren’t enough people at any given time to handle the enormous workloads and the wages just aren’t where they should be.
“Those are definitely the two most pressing issues that have to be addressed by management.”
The care aides employed at Mariposa Gardens make three to four dollars less per hour than employees doing basically the same job at hospitals and many leave because of the pay inequality, said Garbutt.
“We have a hard time holding onto good employees because they leave us as soon as they’re offered a job at much higher pay at a hospital,” she said. “This has become a serious issue across the Okanagan Valley and it has to be addressed.
“You can’t keep quality employees if you don’t compensate them properly for all the hard work they do … and the pay you offer is far under the industry average.”
There are approximately 120 residents living in long-term care and another 30 in assisted living units at Mariposa Gardens, said Garbutt.
During the last three days of bargaining since the end of November, management hasn’t improved its offer in any substantial way, but the union is hoping that will change when the two sides meet again to resume bargaining on April 18 in Osoyoos, said Garbutt.
“We remain confident that the offer they present to us on April 18 will be substantially better than what they’ve offered us so far since the contract expired,” she said. “Our membership has made it very clear that the last offer given to us simply wasn’t acceptable.”
The staffing shortages and overbearing workload leads directly to residents not getting the quality of care they deserve and demand, said Garbutt.
“We simply can’t do everything we’re supposed to do when we don’t have the proper staff in place,” she said. “We’ve also had serious issues with our employees getting injured on the job.
“All of the staffing issues only become worse when we have a number of employees who can’t come to work because they’re injured.”
Mariposa Gardens is “a wonderful facility with wonderful residents”, but the workload and wage issues must be resolved to avoid a possible labour dispute, said Ali.
There are no plans to hit the picket line in the foreseeable future, but that could change in a short period of time, she said.
“So far there are no plans to walk out, but it will be up to the employees to discuss what they want to do if management doesn’t improve its contract offer.”
Will McKay, a spokesperson for Mariposa Gardens, said he’s confident a new contract can be worked out in the near future.
“We’re still in negotiations and we’re looking forward to the next session on April 18,” he said. “We always go into negotiations believing we’ll get a deal done … but we’re not going to negotiate in the media.
“Hopefully we’ll have some very good news very soon.”
KEITH LACEY
Osoyoos Times
