Manitoba health-care support staff vote 97% in favour of strike action

Health-care support staff from across Manitoba have voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action, their union says.

Across Shared Health, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, the Northern Health Region and Southern Health, workers voted 97 per cent in favour of a strike mandate.

Shannon McAteer, health-care co-ordinator for the Canadian Union of Public Employees in Manitoba, said those workers have been without a contract for between four and five years.

Now, they're angry and frustrated.

"They feel that they've been touted as part of the health-care heroes. And now they don't feel like they're certainly being treated that way," McAteer said.

"They're done, quite frankly. They're exhausted. They're frustrated. They want some recognition. They want some acknowledgement of everything that they've gone through."

Employees in Shared Health and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority voted 99 per cent in favour of strike action, while those in the Northern Health Region voted 98 per cent in favour, the union said in a news release.

In Southern Health, health-care support staff voted 92 per cent in favour.

Union still 'optimistic'

Voting started Aug. 18 and continued until noon on Wednesday. McAteer said talks at the bargaining table have been slow moving, but she hopes the strike mandate will help speed things along.

"We're optimistic and we're hopeful that the talks will continue ... in a fruitful manner and that we'll get to a collective agreement," she said.

"That's always the goal of any strike mandate is to ... ultimately not to have to go on strike. But if we have to, we will."

McAteer said the union is hoping for protections for benefits and pension plans, wage increases and better rules around safe working conditions — something that came up during the pandemic. 

The union also asked for a similar agreement to the one the Manitoba Nurses Union came to with the province, where both parties agreed to go to binding arbitration without job action if bargaining is unsuccessful. McAteer said that request was denied.

"They wouldn't give it to us," she said.

"Support workers just want to be treated with the same respect and in the same way that the rest of health care is treated."

Those support workers include health-care aides, clerical staff, biomedical engineers and people working in dietary, laundry, trades and maintenance areas in health care.

More bargaining dates are set to take place in the fall, McAteer said.