If anyone thought that the BC Liberal assault on front-line health care workers was over, one only needs to take a look at the 160 members of the Hospital Employees Union being laid off at Nanaimo Seniors Village. The Bill 29 shell game of rotating contractors, union busting, and privatization at all costs continues, no matter how much pain and trauma it inflicts on health care workers, the patients they serve, and the communities they live in.
Giving Union workers the pink slip in a misguided attempt to shave the bottom line is one thing, but what's particularly repulsive to this page is that the owners of the Nanaimo Seniors Village (Retirement Concepts) are replacing the HEU members with non-Union labour from Abbey Therapeutic Services of Chilliwack. Placing material such as "ATS is a non-union company therefore union activity is prohibited. Any union activity is grounds for immediate dismissal." puts Abbey at a level with Wal-Mart in terms of anti-worker viciousness, and also violates the Conventions of the International Labour Organization of the United Nations, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and what's left of the British Columbia Labour Code.
This is not how a competent and caring society treats its elders, nor the hardworking people who look after them. Of course, with the Liberals planning the cancel the Fall session of the Legislature, they won't be around to be held accountable for the bleak September that Bill 29 inflicted four years ago.
4 comments:
My mother lived at a care facility in Vancouver that "outsourced" its care aide services to Abbey Therapeutic Services. At a meeting for families that was convened by the care facility just prior to ATS taking over this function, I asked Ellen Silbernagel, who owns ATS, how she could guarantee the same quality of service to the residents, given the reduced pay and benefits. Her reply was something to the effect that people who work in the care field are not motivated by money.
In other words, it was acceptable for her company to make a profit on the good hearts of people who care for our frail elderly.
ATS kept the "good" staff from the care facility, and replaced the "troublemakers" who no doubt had been active in HEU. It was chaos for several weeks, extremely hard on the residents and not easy for the families.
Eventually things simmered down and the level of care was reasonably good. But it was provided by people who made a low wage and received minimal benefits such as sick leave. Often, care workers would work at more than one facility that Abbey had contracted to in order to be paid a full time wage.
The work that care aides do is undervalued by a hierarchical medical system. A good care aide must be patient, kind, gracious under pressure, and be willing to undertake some unpleasant tasks to make the people under her or his care more comfortable. It isn't the nurses that clean up the shit or change the diapers.
Care aides are the people that people in care interact with on an hourly basis. They aren't machines, and if they don't possess a lot of emotional intelligence, then our frail relatives suffer for it.
It was clear from the get go that handing over the care aide function to ATS at my mother's center was ideologically motivated to bust the union and bring in the "neo" era. It is not surprising to read that ATS would threaten to fire any employee who engages in union activity; when I suggested to the care aides after the changeover to ATS that they could always certify another union, looks of horror would cross their faces.
Any success that ATS has achieved as care providers is as a result of their dedicated workers, working in fear and for peanuts.
This is interesting in light of what's gone on at the Retirement Concepts facility in Nanaimo -- a nice cozy web of connections.
http://www.koininia-college.ca/faq.htm#13
http://www.retirementconcepts.com/whats_new.html
http://abbeytherapeutic.com/education.htm
"In a decision released last week, Abbey Therapeutic Services Inc. was found to have been in violation of the Labour Relations Code when it asked employees of the Maple Ridge residential care home to sign an employee agreement disallowing any union activity."
http://www.canada.com/mapleridgetimes/news/story.html?id=0207b42b-a125-4b3e-bc2b-1360cdca1fb3&k=25513
Hey, now theyve won an award for being such excellent capitalists! Squeeze out the profits!
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=ac425875-f8fb-495d-adb9-ba21c7da8897&k=6815
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