CUPE recommends new deal for health-care workers, faces criticism after MGEU workers rejected similar deal

Leaders of a Manitoba health-care union are fending off criticism of a new tentative agreement it wants its support workers to ratify — despite support workers in other parts of the province voting against a similar deal. 

The Canadian Union of Public Employees in Manitoba is continuing to recommend its 18,000 health-care support workers vote in favour of the contract, even as its members watched their colleagues in the Prairie Mountain and Interlake-Eastern health regions — who are represented by the Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union — reject a comparable deal on Aug. 15.

CUPE members can vote on the tentative agreement this Tuesday to Thursday.

The blowback from CUPE members has also led to a petition opposing the contract signed by more than 780 people, including the former president of CUPE Local 204, and some heated rhetoric. The union wrote a Facebook post this month accusing some members of making "disrespectful" comments and "bullying" individuals.

Debbie Boissonneault, who led Local 204 between 2017 to 2023, is among the CUPE members planning to vote against the tentative agreement.

"I'm getting a lot of calls. A lot of members are upset that they didn't see some of the incentives that were offered to the nurses and they are recommending their friends vote no," says Boissonneault, who says she's echoing the voices of union members and her opposition has nothing to do with losing her re-election bid last fall. 

"I'm hearing a lot of no's. I'm not hearing a lot of yes's … from membership."

Many opposing the deal

The support workers CUPE represents include health-care aides, home care attendants and dietary and clerical staff. They work for Shared Health and the Winnipeg, Southern and Northern regional health authorities.

Boissonneault stressed she isn't recommending members vote a certain way, but said she believes the tentative agreement for community support and facility support staff doesn't do enough to address the pay gap between support workers and their other health-care colleagues.

When she started as a health-care aide around 25 years ago, the hourly wage gap between an aide and a higher-paid registered nurse was $10, she said. The difference is at least double that today, often more, she said.

"I don't begrudge the nurse getting the wages they get. They're well worth it and they have shortages, but the support [workers] are just as short."

The proposed collective agreement for support workers includes a 2.5 per cent general wage increase starting April 1, 2024, a 2.75 per cent increase for 2025 and a three per cent increase each for 2026 and 2027. If CUPE members vote to reject the deal, a strike mandate will be in place.

Shannon McAteer, health-care co-ordinator for CUPE Manitoba, said she still believes the current deal is worth supporting, describing it as the best monetary package they've negotiated in many years, "but we absolutely respect whatever decision the members make."

While the salary increases in this proposed contract are comparable to other deals Manitoba's public-sector unions have secured in the first year of the current NDP government, Boissonneault said a similar percentage jump doesn't have the same impact on CUPE members who are making less than other professionals.

"I really feel that people should talk dollars and cents and not percentages."

Mylene Fontaine, a referral clerk at a health-care facility, said she's living paycheque to paycheque.

"Inflation has gone up so much, so has minimum wage, and we're barely above that," she said.

She said a signing bonus would help to demonstrate she and her colleagues are being respected.

Health-care support workers represented by MGEU recently voted against a similar deal with the same wage increase formula as CUPE's tentative collective agreement and, according to a MGEU spokesperson, "It wasn't even close."

MGEU recommended its members oppose the deal. President Kyle Ross had argued the last offer wouldn't do enough to solve the recruitment and retention issues the sector is facing.

McAteer said the decision of MGEU's membership hasn't changed her approach in selling the benefits of CUPE's tentative agreement.

"It's the same question: why are we recommending it? And we explain that we're recommending it because we do believe it's a fair deal," she said.

"Nothing is ever perfect, but we want the members to make that decision," she said. 

While announcing the tentative deal in July, CUPE initially touted that the contract was reached after only four months of negotiations. The previous round of negotiations took 21 months under the former Progressive Conservative government.

Frustration understandable: CUPE leader

McAteer attributes some of the anger over the proposed contract to pent-up frustration with the former provincial government, as well as ongoing exhaustion stemming from the pandemic. 

"We've been equating it to a geyser or a volcano, right? There's been a lot of pressure on these health-care workers and it's exploding right now," she said.

In addition to higher pay, Boissonneault would like more equality around the benefits offered at different health-care facilities. Some of those issues weren't addressed in the last round of bargaining, completed in 2022, that tried to streamline more than 120 collective agreements down to one.

McAteer said standardizing the rules will take time, but progress is happening. For example, all home care workers are under the same pay scale in this proposed contract, she said.