Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Care home attempted to bust union: MNU
The Manitoba Nurses Union is gearing up for a battle over an alleged attempt at union-busting by a Winnipeg care home.
This fall, the union will take the Kildonan Personal Care Centre to the province's labour board, after concerns the company fired an entire cadre of recently unionized workers, only to re-classify the same positions to a management level ineligible for unionization.
"Certainly we have similar positions all over province and they are our members, so we have, we believe, a strong case," MNU president Sandi Mowat said Tuesday.
The dispute began in November 2009, when nine of the care home's resident care co-ordinators approached the Manitoba Nurses Union, hoping for representation. The union agreed to represent the group, which worked alongside unionized nurses in the care home, and on May 17 the resident care co-ordinators voted to become unionized.
Three days later, the workers received a letter from their employer informing them that their positions had been "deleted." Their employment was slated to end by Aug. 20.
"I felt bad, because I felt that they were not happy for us that we joined the union," said Maria Victoria Pasia, a former resident care co-ordinator at the facility. Pasia has since sought work elsewhere.
"It seems we're not valued as much as the nurses (who work there)."
In the notice of deletion, the company announced it would be creating new "resident care manager" positions, which featured many of the same job duties that the resident care co-ordinators already performed, as well as traditional management duties including hiring and discipline. Workers were told they could apply for the positions, but were not guaranteed re-hire. If all the positions were filled as management, that would result in 13 managers overseeing 14 nurses, Mowat said.
Mowat said although the old positions were being paid higher than union scale, the resident care co-ordinators were not receiving other job benefits -- such as overtime pay and shift premiums. "They had concerns they had tried to voice and didn't feel they had a voice," Mowat said.
The Manitoba Labour Board will hear the case in November.
Representatives from Revera Health Services, which operates Kildonan Personal Care Centre on Henderson Highway, could not be reached.
melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 11, 2010 B5
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