More than 600 health-care workers from three city homes for the aged long-term care homes have been awarded unprecedented wage and benefit increases, CAW officials announced Thursday.
CAW Local 229 members from Pioneer Ridge, Dawson Court and Grandview Lodge, three long-term care homes operated by the City of Thunder Bay, received six per cent wage increases.
The contract also awards a 25-cents-an-hour wage increase that will be adjusted retroactively for registered practical nurses and an increase to vacation entitlement.
“This has been a very long process,” CAW Local 229 president Kari Jefford is quoted as saying in a news release the union issued to media Thursday afternoon.
“This collective agreement expired on June 30, 2010 and we just received the award on Oct. 25, 2011. We have been bargaining this agreement for well over a year.”
She added that the current bargaining environment in Ontario has been a significant challenge for the unions and employers alike.
“Bill 16, legislation introduced in 2010 has really tied the hands of employers who receive transfer payments,” she said. “The legislation was supposed to freeze wages and all monetary proposals for non-union workers in the public sector and any sector where companies received transfer funds.
“The message to the labour unions was that employers were going to be able to bargain freely with unionized workers, but the province warned employers that if they bargained increases the province would not transfer the money to pay for it.”
