A cash-strapped care home on Vancouver Island issued layoff notices to about 150 unionized staff on Thursday and confirmed that non-union workers will be brought in to replace them starting June 1.
Andrew Butler, spokesman for the Lodge on 4th, a privately operated complex care home in Ladysmith, said the facility has suffered ongoing financial challenges since it opened in 2007 and claimed that contracting out is the only way to ensure the operation's viability.
"It's a situation where we need to sustain the operations and continue to provide care in the community," Mr. Butler said. "We've had an ongoing dialogue with the health authority, but not all of our challenges could be met."
Under Bill 29, the Liberal government's controversial labour legislation, the province can approve the contracting out of up to 700 unionized health-care jobs each year.
The Lodge on 4th received Ministry of Health approval to contract out the jobs last fall, but first had to allow the affected union workers to submit a counter-proposal, which the company rejected in February.
The layoffs, which came with 60 days notice, affect 75 full-time and 60 to 65 casual workers, along with 15 registered nurses and six non-union support staff, Mr. Butler said.
Hospital Employees' Union spokesperson Margi Blamey said kitchen staff, laundry workers, care aides, licensed practical nurses and cleaners are affected.
Some have worked for the Lodge on 4th and its predecessor, The Lodge for All Seasons, for more than 30 years, she said.
Staff at Vancouver Island Health Authority, which funds close to 80 per cent of the facility's beds, said the operation has had "financial difficulties since the day it opened its doors" and stressed the importance of "staying true to the original agreement we signed."
As workers at The Lodge on 4th were pondering their fate yesterday, about 220 unionized staff at Sunridge Place care home in Duncan were celebrating a Labour Relations Board decision that saved their jobs earlier in the week.
The Sunridge Place workers were fired en masse in early December, just three days after voting to join the hospital union. However, the LRB overruled the layoffs, saying the notices were issued by the facility's operator, Duncan Care Campus Ltd., and not by the "true employer," Sunridge Place Ltd.
"Basically, Duncan Care Campus is not the employer, so they cannot issue layoff notices," Ms. Blamey said.
Mr. Butler, who is also the media contact for Sunridge Place, said the facility's owners won't decide on their next course of action until the LRB releases its full written decision later this month.
Rotating union contracts and financial woes has become a common theme for B.C.'s new breed of public-private care homes in recent months.
In November, Abbey Therapeutic Services, which operates Nanaimo Seniors Village, Beacon Hill Villa in Victoria and Dufferin Care Centre in Coquitlam, announced it would stop paying about 170 union workers at those three locations as of Nov. 15.
The company that owns the facilities, Retirement Concepts, later signed an interim agreement to keep union staff in place until a new contractor signs on.
HEU staff at Nanaimo Seniors Village have lost their contract four times since 2004, Ms. Blamey said.
Special to The Globe and Mail