Manitoba health-care workers accept new contract

Members of a union representing health-care professionals in Manitoba have voted to accept a new contract after 15 months of negotiations and more than five years without one.

The more than 6,500 members of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals now have six-year agreements covering workers with three employer organizations, including Shared Health, the union said in a Friday news release.

The agreements provide for 8.35 per cent general wage increases from 2018 to 2023, a deal that the union said is consistent with other recent health-care agreements.

As part of the deal, the final year of general wage increases will be referred to mediated arbitration, and will include a guaranteed minimum wage increase of two per cent for 2023.

After more than five years without a contract, "morale on the front line is predictably low," union president Jason Linklater said in the release.

The union — which represents a wide range of health-care professionals, including rural paramedics and emergency dispatch, respiratory therapists, lab and diagnostic technologists, social workers, pharmacists, physiotherapists and dietitians, among workers in many other professions — also warned of "dangerously high" staffing shortages.

MAHCP hopes the changes in the collective agreements will help keep more people working on the health-care front lines and help Manitoba "begin recruiting more to address the staffing crisis," Linklater said in the statement.

Most union members will also get a three per cent market adjustment in October 2023, which will be taken from a $32-million wage standardization and market adjustment fund. Members in emergency medical services, midwifery and perfusion will receive special wage adjustments, MAHCP said.

The rest of that $32-million fund "will be allocated through agreement by a joint employer-union committee to address ongoing retention issues and increasing wage competition among provinces," the statement said.

The union said addressing recruitment and retention was a priority during negotiations.

While the new contract increases overtime rates and off-shift premiums, the union "expects employers will continue to rely on overtime for the foreseeable future given current staffing challenges," its statement said.

After finishing negotiations with both MACHP and the Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union earlier this week, Shared Health said in a statement Friday that all health workforce sectors, covering more than 56,000 employees, now have collective agreements.

Bargaining was delayed due to restructuring and consolidating more than 200 collective agreements to 36, Shared Health said, which it called "a manageable number that streamlines the bargaining process."