Strike is underway at Red Deer seniors home

The 130 employees of Red Deer’s Symphony Senior Living Aspen Ridge care home hit the picket lines Monday, as the union says it’s digging in until the facility agrees to a key “just cause” contract provision.

Staff at the senior’s facility served strike notice last week, and were then locked out by their employer.

Symphony CEO Lisa Brush said replacement workers were brought in Friday and were ready to get to work when the labour action officially began Monday.

The picket lines were initially postponed as the two sides attempted new talks over the weekend, but negotiations remained stuck over the Alberta Union of Provincial Employee’s demand for “just cause” provisions in the collective agreement.

The union filed for an emergency hearing with the Alberta Labour Relations Board on Monday. AUPE president Guy Smith said he was disappointed that weekend talks broke down, but the LPNs, health-care aides and other specialized staff are prepared to stick it out on strike.

Smith said the just cause provision is a fundamental principle in a unionized workplace, as it gives employees accused of wrongdoing the right to grieve t he discipline and potentially have it reversed.

“If we’re going to get a collective agreement, it has to be in there. If it takes a long time to achieve it, we’re in for a long haul,” Smith said.

Brush said the company is “stretching as far as we can” to meet the union’s demands but remains firm in its position.

It it takes a long time to achieve it, we’re in for a long haul. GUY SMITH,

AUPE PRESIDENT

She said Symphony offered the union an “extremely generous” severance offer of three months pay for employees who had worked a full year before being fired without cause.

“That point was very important to us from a resident care and safety perspective. We were willing to pay for the point with an extremely generous severance offer,” Brush said.

“We felt that was their safeguard.”

The majority of the 154 beds at Aspen Ridge are private spaces.

While 49 are funded by Alberta Health Services to provide assisted living for seniors, including many with Alzheimer’s and forms of dementia, Symphony said last week it is cancelling that contract with the provincial health authority. It has a year to work with AHS to find new homes for the residents.