Saskatchewan's union of healthcare workers, the CUPE Local 5430, were in Weyburn today for their AGM, with the 200 employees of different classifications making their presence known in front of the Weyburn General Hospital this morning.
President Bashir Jalloh explained the purpose of the public, rally-type of gathering.
"We are here to let our employer and the government and we have reached out to them, to let them know the struggle that healthcare workers are facing in this province, and that struggle has been here before COVID but is getting worse, and the main reason is because of the low wages and the skyrocketing cost of living."
He said while their union has been told that short-staffing would be addressed, it has not yet been addressed.
"The short staffing is putting tremendous effort, tremendous pressure, on our members. The workload is just unbearable, and when you have a significant amount of workload, combined with low wages, these people are resulting in extraordinary situations," Jalloh stated.
He said their collective agreement expired more than a year ago, and the process is going 'extremely slowly'. They will be returning to the bargaining table on September 18th, and then again in November.
"We want the employers to come to the bargaining table with a fair deal so we can have a collective agreement and fair wage increase for our members."
Jalloh noted the provincial government has been placing an emphasis on recruiting from overseas, "spending millions of dollars".
"What are you going to do to retain people here? The wages are low, the working conditions are not good. People finish university, they come here one or two years, and then if it's not good, they leave, and they go back to Alberta, Manitoba, because those people have better working conditions."
He said most classifications of staff can obtain better wages in Manitoba, Alberta, and British Columbia.
"So we want to be able to retain people in our community. They are spending all this money into building in all these big facilities, but if you build these facilities without any plan to staff these facilities, it doesn't make any sense," he commented. "We saw that with the Regina urgent care facilities. And the problem is also they are moving towards privatization."
"This government is very good at reacting. Our employer is very reactive. We have proposed to them a plan for what can we do to solve the problem, but they always reacting. Their first reaction is, 'let's contract it out. Let's get contract workers', and when you are working in the facilities, you are a nurse, you are working in the same facility, you are being paid $20, $30, and they bring somebody in, paying them $70, $80, what does that do? It brings down morale."
Jalloh said they have made these challenges very clear, "but it seems like it's been falling on deaf ears, because of the pace of the bargaining."
The union's main goal, he stated, in addition to staff retention, is the ongoing concern of properly being able to provide services to patients.
"The patients deserve better."
He pointed to the lengthy wait times in emergency rooms, as well as for patients having blood work or X-rays, which Jalloh said never used to be an issue here.
"What are we going to do to get back to that point? The only way we're going to do that is to retain people in this province. If we want to retain them, we are competing with other provinces. We see what the other provinces are doing. They are giving people bonuses for retention. Our government, our employer is not doing any of that."
Jalloh said with the bargaining table meetings coming so few and far between, their ability to meet face-to-face is limited.
"That is really bringing a lot of frustration to our members, because if they haven't had any wage increase and people are struggling with the cost of living, what do you expect for them? The other problem that is happening, is the patients, the public, don't know all about this. If you look at the violence in the healthcare system is as a result of this. You have an appointment to come do your blood work or an X-ray, but when you come, there is short staffing. And what are you going to do? You get angry. Who are you going to take that out on? The frontline staff. We cannot continue in this direction."
