SASKATOON, REGINA — The Official Opposition and the province’s health-care unions continue to step up their pressure campaign to get a deal done with health-care workers.
Rallies were held Thursday in both Saskatoon and Regina in advance of strike votes scheduled by health-care unions this September.
At a rally outside Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, workers from SEIU-West stood alongside Opposition Leader Carla Beck. There, Beck attacked executives at the Saskatchewan Health Authority who she said received recent pay increases averaging 6.1 per cent.
Beck again repeated her party’s call that those executive pay raises be halted until health-care workers receive a raise.
“I say this to the government. I say this to the minister of health, the minister of labour and to the premier: Wake up. Get these people a fair deal at the bargaining table. Let’s stop the bleeding in a broken health-care system. To the people of the province, I say this: We will not stop fighting to deliver the change that you so desperately need and deserve, and that these workers deserve.”
On the same day as the event with SEIU-West workers in Saskatoon, health-care workers from CUPE Local 5430 were in Regina staging a march outside Pasqua Hospital. The workers were joined at that rally by local NDP MLAs Noor Burki, Bhajan Brar, Jacqueline Roy and Meara Conway.
In a video from the march that was posted on social media, CUPE Saskatchewan president Kent Peterson said health-care workers are taking a strike vote this September “because they’re tired of the low wages that they are paid by the Saskatchewan Health Authority.”
“It’s time for SAHO (Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations), the health authority and the provincial government to get serious — to get these people a fair deal and make sure that we can end the retention crisis by ensuring Saskatchewan health-care workers are paid fairly and can stay here.”
In a statement earlier this week, the government said the Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations is the designated agency to negotiate with all health-care unions on behalf of all employers in the industry.
"The government’s responsibility is to provide a bargaining mandate to SAHO. It would be inappropriate for ministers to be directly involved in the bargaining process. We know the best deals are reached at the bargaining table, and our government has asked employers and unions to work together to find an agreement that works for health-care workers, patients, and communities.”
— With files from Jon Perez
