Seniors’ care workers await promised pay hike

Continuing-care workers bearing a major brunt of COVID-19 outbreaks still haven’t received a $2-an-hour pay boost promised by the provincial government last month, say their unions.

One of the unions said it appears facility operators have failed to forward the provincial funds to staff.

Lou Arab, spokesman for CUPE Alberta, said it’s a betrayal of those providing care for seniors and has hobbled efforts to recruit more staff in hard-pressed facilities.

“There’s no incentives to hire new staff ... the jobs aren’t worth what little they’re paid,” he said.

“After first floating this on April 10, they’ve been saying ‘that pay’s coming, it’s coming’ but nobody’s getting any increase in their paycheques today.”

Arab said the rollout of the pay top-up, to be provided through a $7.3-million infusion to continuing-care homes announced last month, has been vague and confusing.

It stands in stark contrast, he said, to the $4-an-hour wage hikes provided quickly by some other provinces to health-care aides.

“This government and (health) ministry has been fumbling the ball since Day 1. They don’t want to pay workers more money or acknowledge the problems in longterm care,” said Arab.

He noted those workers, which include dietary and cleaning staff, have been among the Albertans hardest hit by the novel coronavirus, with hundreds falling ill.

“I would say they’re second only to meat packers,” said Arab, adding about three dozen staff at the Mckenzie Towne Continuing Care Centre alone have been infected.

Pay rates among those workers vary between facilities, he said, but a typical starting wage would be $16 to $19 an hour, “and often, they don’t have pensions or benefits.”

The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees said it’s up to the province to ensure continuing-care employers provide that top-up money to their workers after announcing the funding April 20.

“For (Health) Minister (Tyler) Shandro to make this announcement and then one month later have no follow through to ensure some of our health-care workforce are actually receiving the promised raise is disappointing, to say the least,” said AUPE vice-president Susan Slade.

“It appears we cannot expect the government to hold these providers accountable.”

That money will get to staff but some facility operators might not pay it until mid-june according to their payroll schedules, said Steve Buick, Shandro’s press secretary.

“The $2 wage top-up for healthcare aides in contracted continuing-care facilities will be paid as promised, retroactive to April 20,” he said.

Those top-ups will apply to voluntary (faith-based), contracted and non-profit and independent facilities’ staff, and not to public providers such as Covenant, Carewest and Capitalcare, which pay more, said the province.

Provincial money for the top-ups was received by some care facility operators on May 8 and should be on staff paycheques Friday or in June, said Mike Leathwood, CEO of Bethany Group, which operates 14 sites.

“It just takes time to process the payment and these are challenging times, but over the next few weeks (staff) should be getting it,” said Leathwood. “I understand why (workers) are anxious to get it.”

The Alberta NDP has already accused Shandro of delaying support for the continuing-care sector, where about 80 per cent of Alberta’s COVID -19 fatalities have occurred.