Staffers say they were treated ‘with contempt’

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/09/2016 (3321 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It took all of six minutes and 36 seconds to end 80 careers with the East Side Road Authority.

That’s how long it took management to tell the workers Sept. 13 they would be terminated Nov. 25, say two employees who agreed to be interviewed on condition of remaining anonymous because they’re looking for work and don’t want to be labelled as troublemakers.

The workers were called together a couple of weeks ago at 9:15 a.m. at the Carlton Street headquarters of the East Side Road Authority and told there were information packages laid out in the lunchroom and managers would not be answering any questions.

“We’ve been treated like third-class citizens, with contempt,” said one worker.

The staffers said they were all aware Premier Brian Pallister intended to dissolve the authority and absorb its work building an all-weather road on the east side of Lake Winnipeg into Manitoba Infrastructure.

“We were led to believe we would move into MI to run the program,” the same employee said. “Their (MI) people are not equipped to oversee this project. To go from bush to road is a different creature.”

The pair said the authority trained more than 300 indigenous residents on the east side, most of whom chose construction training so they could get jobs building the all-weather road.

They stayed in lodges or trailers flown in by helicopter, working alongside the residents while training them.

His colleague said some staff have asked unsuccessfully to have their employment extended to March. “A month before Christmas, you let us go?” she said.

“If he (Pallister) wasn’t going to lay off front-line workers, who could be more front-line than us?” asked the young woman.

The male staffer said he may go into business for himself in construction.

“If I had a big company, I’d hire pretty much all the people,” he said.

Many East Side Road Authority employees previously worked on the floodway expansion, they pointed out.

By August, the authority was telling the 80 employees they were not classified as government civil servants.

They’ve been offered the opportunity to apply for 10 permanent jobs with Manitoba Infrastructure and to apply for 33 “transitional opportunities” — short-term contracts involving the integration of the road authority into the government department.

The pair said the chance to apply for permanent jobs was withdrawn Tuesday.

However, Olivia Baldwin-Valainis, Pallister’s director of communications and stakeholder relations, said Wednesday there is “absolutely no truth to the allegation of a withdrawal of employees’ ability to apply for the job openings within MI.”

Meanwhile, the two staff members said, very few of the 80 have found new jobs yet.

They’re reportedly receiving make-work assignments or counting down the days in the office.

While they were not government employees, the male employee warned, “A lot of people believe we’re the template for what is to come.”

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca