Full-time health staff may face casual work ban
Under new provincial authority those doing both must pick one or the other
Employees of Saskatchewan’s newly amalgamated health authority who worked for more than one health region prior to Dec. 4 will have to decide where they will continue to work, according to one of the unions representing health-care workers.
Barbara Cape, president of the SEIU-West, the union representing thousands of Saskatchewan health-care workers, said they’ve learned from the transition team preparing for the new provincial health authority that because there will be one provincial employer, if someone works full time in one health region and part time or casually in another, they will have to choose where to continue working.
“So, we have members who are co-employed in two, sometimes three, different facilities across the province and they are going to have to make a decision about where they want to live and work, and pick up hours,” Cape said.
The union has had conversations with the transition team about this, but it has not provided a deadline for when such decisions need to be made, she said.
“What will happen with those shifts is really probably the best question of anything that’s coming out of this new Saskatchewan Health Authority because we’ve asked the questions, but we’ve not received any sort of response. That affects our members and their employment,” Cape said.
“I think it’s important to note these people are doing some pretty significant travel in order to accommodate multiple jobs ... and the work still has to get done. There’s no clarity from the transition team how they’re going to be calling out those shifts.”
Until amalgamation, health region employees will be able to work full time in one region and take casual shifts in another. After Monday, if an employee is needed to cover shifts that were once casual, their employer will call on them to work an overtime shift.
“It’s nothing that is surprising to us,” said Tracy Zambory, president of the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN). “It really is something that’s in the shared interest. It’s good for practitioners and all health-care workers. It’s good for patients that we don’t have people being put into overtime situations.”
Working toward a work-life balance for employees protects patients, Zambory said, noting the contract language that has already been agreed to will help ensure work is available for new graduates entering the health-care field.
“If someone is already holding a full-time position, then what we’re going to encourage with this new Saskatchewan Health Authority is that we look to create as many fulltime jobs as possible for the new grads that are coming out, rather than having a full-time person take all the casual shifts,” she said.
“They already own a full-time position and we’re very happy and proud about that. The more registered nurses working in the system, the better.”
Ministry of Health spokeswoman Shirley Xie wrote in emails last week that “even senior leadership positions are still being filled, so it would be too early to say” whether the amalgamation could lead to new positions being created.