BOSSES VIEW

Company says union rejected deal to pay employees more to work exclusively at its long-term care homes during pandemic

Tyler Dawson POSTMEDIA

Company says union rejected deal to pay employees more to work exclusively at its long-term care homes during pandemic

A network of long-term care homes in Canada says that it offered its employees more money in exchange for working exclusively at its homes at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the union representing staff rejected the offer and filed unfair labour practice complaints against them in three provinces (AFTER THE FACT)

© Provided by National Post Long-term care homes in Canada were especially hit hard by COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic.

The lawyer for the company, All Seniors Care, and its management company, Nutra 2000, said employees were offered $2 per hour extra if they worked exclusively in their care homes, and $4 per hour extra if they lived in them.

The offer, made in late March, was to entice staff away from working at multiple different care homes in order to lower the risk of spreading the virus, which is especially deadly for older people.

“They care about their patients, they care about their brand, they care about protecting people, they care about everyone, including their staff,” said Howard Levitt, the lawyer for the care homes.

Multiple deadly outbreaks devastated care homes during the first wave of the pandemic and in response the federal Liberals have pushed for national standards of care for the elderly.

At the start of the pandemic, the company made the offer to its 2,000 employees, who work in 35 homes in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario, said Levitt, who is also a Financial Post columnist. The employees at All Seniors Care are represented by the Labourers International Union of North America.

The company says the union was tardy in replying to its offer, so it went ahead with implementing the plan. It says 85 per cent of its employees agreed to the exclusivity arrangement and were paid the bonus between March 28 and April 24. Those that did not sign the agreement continued as before, without being paid the bonus, Levitt said, since they were bound by a collective agreement.

“Faced with a choice between a collective agreement and the relations with the union and the life and death of their residents, they thought it wasn’t much of a choice,” said Levitt. “We’re not going to play Russian roulette with our residents’ lives, that’s our defence, and public safety supersedes the collective agreement.”

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Levitt said the union argued all employees should get a raise, which Levitt said defeated the purpose of the offer to incentivize employees to work at just one home before the provinces brought in their own rules during the first wave of the pandemic.

As of April 22, Ontario limited long-term care workers to just one home. Saskatchewan issued a similar order on April 17, and Alberta did so on April 10. The orders remain in effect in all three provinces.

“The whole intent was to save lives and to keep everyone safe,” said Sandy Lauder, the vice-president of human resources at Nutra 2000.

The union representing long-term care workers for the company filed unfair labour practice complaints against the company in Ontario and Alberta on April 3 and in Saskatchewan on April 8.

The Post reached out by phone and email to the union, but they did not respond by press time. However, the union told the Toronto Sun that all staff are significantly underpaid and “all employees” should be treated equally since the pay raise was actually about the company’s ability to attract employees.

“This was never, ever, ever about the health and safety of residents,” Charlene Nero, director of the legal department for LiUNA, local 3000, told the Sun.