Group home, locked-out staff in mediation
Bargaining continued Tuesday between SEIU-West and Variety Place Association to end the lockout that began May 21.
The talks included a labour ministry-appointed mediator, SEIUWest president Barbara Cape said. The workers have been without a contract since September 2013.
“There hasn’t been a whole lot of progress,” she said. “There was an offer made a couple weeks ago that the membership here rejected, so that’s why we’re back at the table again today. We’re hopeful, but you never know.”
The Outlook group home for people with physical and mental disabilities had 22 residents and three who came for day programs, Cape said. Residents are now living with family or at other facilities.
For the former residents that means losing continuity of care, while families don’t get to see the residents as often, Cape said.
Workers at Variety have not been making a living wage, she said. They’re also “subsidizing” Variety Place by bringing in small appliances to help make food and they’re limited in the amount of personalcare products they can use, she said.
An earlier proposal from the union called for a two per cent annual wage increase from 2015 through 2018. In a statement posted to Facebook, Variety Place said, “in the absence of additional funding from the government of Saskatchewan, Variety Place is simply not in a position to provide and sustain these wage increases.”
Cape called that argument “disingenuous” because of a previous funding increase, and said those increases would have amounted to only 34 cents an hour.
A Variety Place Association representative could not be immediately reached for comment. The Facebook statement said they are “prepared to end the lockout immediately upon SEIU-West accepting our final offer.”
SEIU-West has applied to the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board to end the lockout.