News

A potential strike involving 25,000 Manitoba health-care support workers has been avoided thanks to a tentative agreement that came down to the wire.

CUPE and MGEU say the tentative deal was struck with Shared Health and other employers at 4:25 a.m. Tuesday — just an hour and a half before the strike deadline.

CUPE’s Gina McKay told 680 CJOB’s The Start the new deal includes significant improvements to wages and working conditions. One of the main sticking points of the back and forth was money, with some workers paid as little as $17 an hour.

“We’re recommending to vote to accept the offer, and that says a lot,” McKay said.

“We see that this is a way to bring the important pieces around recruitment and retention — two pieces of such a huge collective agreement that we’ve got here. These are the core pieces we need to see, because we are valuing health-care support workers in the recommendation that we’re putting forward.”

McKay said the lengthy bargaining process was due in part to the sheer number of workers, in a variety of roles, who are represented by the unions.

Union members, she said, go back to their regular shifts Tuesday, and will soon receive details on the tentative agreement and when they can vote on it.

“We’re scheduling online information sessions, so we’ll have workers listening in today, we’ll have clients and people who access services listening in.

“All of these information sessions will go out to the members and an electronic ratification vote will follow.”

1:41 Health-care support worker strike likely, union president says