Layoff threats toss wrench into contract negotiations for Southeast Child and Family Services workers, union says

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The union representing workers who support Indigenous children and families at eight First Nations claims Southeast Child and Family Services has threatened layoffs while bargaining for a new contract continues.

Kyle Ross, president of the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union, said negotiators were taken aback when the agency’s management told them at the bargaining table they were contemplating layoffs at some point in the future.

As well, Ross said the agency has also told the union that additional money it received from the provincial government, which the union said was intended to raise workers’ wages to achieve parity with other Child and Family Services workers in the province, was going elsewhere.

“These layoffs really come late in the game,” Ross said Monday, noting the union has sent a letter detailing the latest developments to all its members at Southeast CFS as well as Southeast CFS executive director Rhonda Kelly.

“We’ve been bargaining with them for quite a while. All they said initially was they didn’t have the funding, (then) the funding appears and, all of a sudden, they are throwing layoffs at these workers. It is a really unfair situation.

“This employer is really pushing their weight around at the bargaining table by trying to scare these workers and lay them off.”

Ross emphasized that the 170 members the union represents “have earned parity.”

“I think they do a very difficult job and they have been doing this job, many of them, for a long time. They support families in their most vulnerable time and children when they are most vulnerable so I can’t imagine any reason why parity is not on the table with this unit.

“It is a very frustrating situation.”

No one from Southeast CFS responded to a Free Press request for comment.

Workers at the child welfare agency, which is jointly funded by the federal and provincial governments, and which serves Berens River First Nation, Black River First Nation, Bloodvein First Nation, Brokenhead Ojibway Nation, Hollow Water First Nation, Little Grand Rapids First Nation, Pauingassi First Nation and Poplar River First Nation, have been without a contract since March 31, 2022.

The threat of layoffs comes just days after the same union received notice that 44 of 221 workers with Métis Child and Family Services and 21 of 111 with Michif Child and Family Services have received layoff notices. Those two agencies are also in bargaining and have been without a contract since Jan. 31, 2023.

All three agencies voted on strike mandates late last year.

Currently, a child-welfare worker with the province’s civil service earns between $32.96 and $46.87 per hour, while the equivalent workers at Southeast CFS get between $30.84 and $42.75 per hour. Métis CFS workers get between $31.42 and $43.56 per hour and Michif CFS earn $31.31 to $43.42 per hour.

Meanwhile, during question period, Tory families critic Jodie Byram said a worker who received a layoff notice from Métis CFS told her that “vital programs have been cut and vulnerable children will be impacted.”

Byram said program cuts and one-on-one supports for at-risk children have been “drastically reduced, nearly eliminated.

“The minister can keep blaming everyone else, but the fact remains children are losing essential supports because of this government’s failure to act.”

Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine noted the MMF has blamed the federal government for the layoff notices because of its failure to provide the necessary funding.

Fontaine told the Free Press an additional $11.3 million announced last week for the CFS system overall was a lot of money.

“We haven’t seen those types of increases for years and years and certainly not under the (previous PC governments),” she said. “We don’t pick out numbers just willy-nilly. The numbers we have, and the increases we get, are based on the numbers of staff we know that work at CFS agencies and I know this is a significant increase across the system.”

And, while Fontaine said she wasn’t giving direction to either management or the union, “I know that families would want everybody to come to the table in a good way and do what’s in the best interests of children.

“That’s the bottom line.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca