Caressant Care Rally

Thursday, 29 May 2014 at 18:10

Unifor Prez Jerry Dias stands with protesters in Woodstock Thursday morning

Unifor hosts rally demanding wage increases for support workers

WOODSTOCK - More than one hundred people gathered outside of Caressant Care's Head Office in Woodstock to support workers at the nursing homes.

The rally was organized by Unifor who claim the workers were told a wage increase will not be negotiated for them in the current round of negotiations despite the fact in the last round of negotiations an arbitrator awarded no pay increases.

Unifor National President Jerry Dias was in attendance Thursday morning to kick off the rally.

"I'm here to tell our members at Caressant Care, I'm here to tell our members in the healthcare sector of our union, that we will do whatever is necessary to win justice at the bargaining table and trust me brothers and sisters, we will win justice!"

Unifor National Representative Robert Buchanan says the tide has changed and the union is trying to show that they are not going to roll over and accept the status quo.

"This is an employer that gets a lot of money from our tax payers, makes a lot of money and it's time that these people actually get a wage increase. They haven't had a wage increase in three years and that's absolutely unacceptable."

"Their work loads are increasing almost on a daily basis. They have literally no time to work through breaks and it's time that the company respects what they do for this community and the seniors that come out of this community."

Buchanan says most contracts at Courtland, Woodstock and Harriston homes expired in January, March and the end of April.

Manager of Corporate Communications at Caressant Care Lee Griffi says while he cannot discuss contract talks, claims that workers did not receive a raise during the last round of negotiations is not completely true. He says they did receive a 1% lump sum payment over two years as negotiated by the arbitrator.

"No one in long term care would disagree that we are not funded properly to deal with the kind of residents that we are today. Our residents have much more medical issues then they did years ago."

Griffi says there is certainly a lot of work being done behind the scenes to lobby the government for more money for long term care workers.