Sixty-five personal support workers will vote in Sudbury today to say whether or not they want to go on strike.
Negotiations between their union – Service Employees International Union Local 1 – and the Red Cross have broken down.
On July 30, when they return to the bargaining table, the union will tell the Red Cross the results of the strike vote, said union secretary-treasurer and chief negotiator Cathy Carroll, who hopes for a happy outcome.
The main stumbling block, Carroll said, is travel time. Currently, the personal support workers, also known as home care workers, aren’t paid for the time they travel from home to home where they bathe, dress, help exercise and change incontinence products for their clients – most of them elderly, many with dementia. They are, however, paid mileage.
“There’s not an industry in this province where driving is part of your job that you’re not compensated (for) those hours,” Carroll said.
The union is asking the Red Cross to pay the personal support workers an hourly rate for the time they spend driving. And in this area, those hours can add up. The Sudbury Red Cross serves clients who mostly live in the communities surrounding the city.
The union also wants an increase in the mileage rate from 32 cents to 50 cents a kilometer. “Gas keeps going up,” Carroll said.
The Red Cross, on the other hand, is offering about $30 a week for travel time, she said. The dollar figure is the result of a formula that takes a worker’s total hours for the week and multiplies it by six per cent.
That figure is then multiplied by the hourly rate of pay. The Red Cross also wants to change the way mileage is paid, Carroll said. The agency wants workers to travel 40 kilometres in a day before qualifying for mileage.
Second, the union wants personal support workers to be paid the same pay as their counterparts in a nursing home – between $16.76 and $19 an hour. Currently, they start at $14 an hour, Carroll said. The Red Cross is offering a one per cent pay hike this year and one and a half per cent for each of the next three years.
Third, the union wants the personal support workers to get sick pay. Currently, they don’t get any, she said. As well, it wants the workers to get more vacation time. As it stands now, they have to work 10 years to get three weeks vacation. “At Wal-Mart,” Carroll noted, “workers get three weeks after five years.”
The union had asked the Red Cross to provide pension benefits but it took that request off the table, she said.
Red Cross spokesperson Maxine Jackman said the agency “wasn’t in a position to get into a public discussion on the negotiation.” She described the home care workers as “absolutely outstanding.”
“We feel quite confident we’re going to be able to settle and reach a new agreement with (the union).”
Monique Prince, whose father Edward was cared for by a personal support worker from the Red Cross, said the workers should be paid more for what they do.
“Oh my God,” Prince said. “I can’t say enough. When somebody is taking care of your family member and your family member is happy, it gives you peace of mind.
“I couldn’t have done it without them.”
