Health workers at residential facility for disabled on strike over wages

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This article was published 06/03/2024 (626 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

More than 150 workers at a non-profit residential facility for people with physical disabilities walked off the job Wednesday morning in a fight for better pay.

The strike by members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees left some residents of Ten Ten Sinclair in Garden City without adequate care.

Todd Norris, who moved to the independent-living facility three years ago when a mysterious illness left him paralyzed from the waist down, said he supports the workers’ fight for a fair wage.

He’s hoping, however, the strike can be settled by the weekend; he scheduled to undergo surgery next week and wants to receive post-op care from aides who know him best.

“I can’t do anything without people like them, said Norris, 52, who no longer has adequate use of his hands, either.

“I appreciate everything they do for me; without them I have no quality of life. Without them I’m going to be in a lot of trouble.”

Norris was sitting outside Ten Ten Sinclair watching his caregivers clad in neon orange CUPE-logoed toques picketing with signs and flags.

“Health-care workers and health-care support workers in particular have been left behind. They’ve been left out of conversations,” CUPE Manitoba president Gina McKay said on the picket line Wednesday afternoon.

“This is our chance to say to the (Winnipeg Regional Health Authority) we need to prioritize health-care support workers.”

Contract negotiations between the union and the non-profit hit a wall Tuesday night. The workers have been without a contract for four years.

CUPE members voted overwhelmingly in favour of a strike mandate in September.

Ten Ten Sinclair Housing Inc. is a non-profit organization supporting people living with disabilities and other challenges in several facilities in the city, including the main 75-unit building on Sinclair Street near Leila Avenue.

Striking workers said pickets were set up only outside that facility.

McKay said wages for workers at the facility have increased by 1.75 per cent since 2016 while the cost of living has increased by 25 per cent.

The median wage of employees at the facility is between $15 and $18 per hour, she said.

“When we look back through these really challenging times through the pandemic, these workers have been left behind. And so we’re here to say, there’s no health-care worker left behind; we need to see fair wages, we need to see a fair contract,” she said.

In an emailed statement a spokesperson for the WRHA said Ten Ten Sinclair is an independent organization and is solely responsible for negotiating with its employees, and the health authority’s current priority is caring for residents amid the strike.

Norris said the WRHA called in replacement workers to care for residents, but he wants to be tended to by workers he trusts.

“I’m able to talk to them about stuff that’s going on in my life,” he said. “I’ve just had a really rough four years and they always help me, they treat me like family.”

Ten Ten Sinclair could not be reached for comment by press time.

In its statement, WRHA said it had staff on site at the facility Wednesday to find replacement workers, including “actively identifying Winnipeg Health Region staff who have the appropriate training to fill shifts for Ten Ten Sinclair wherever possible.”

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca