Union: Houston has money for consulting but not for home care workers

HALIFAX, NS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--After neglecting the public tendering process, the Houston government awarded a 2.18-million-dollar contract to a private consulting company to “take home care to the next level.” This comes after two years of bargaining with nearly 500 workers in the home care sector where wages are the key sticking point.

“At each bargaining table across the province, home care employers are telling us that they can’t afford to pay home care workers more, that they need to work for at least seven years before reaching the top wage scale,” said CUPE Home Care Coordinator Kathy McLeod. “A wage which, by the way, is still below the living wage everywhere in the province.”

Most CUPE home care workers have been working with an expired contract for nearly four years and have been actively bargaining a new one for the last two. All four groups have taken positive strike votes in the past several months and are in the midst of preparing for strike if bargaining continues to stall.

“The last thing we want is to end up on strike,” said CUPE Home Support Coordinating Committee Chair Jenn Smith. “We understand how stressful that can be on our clients and their families, as well as our own. But the fact remains we’ve been fighting for two years for the government to pay attention to us, to recognize the value of our work, and instead they want us to settle for the bare minimum.”

“This latest untendered home care contract is just a symptom of what we’ve been seeing in the senior care sector for the past several years: a lack of care,” commented CUPE Long Term Care Coordinator Tammy Martin. “Houston’s government has made home care wait 4 years, has made long term care wait 2 years, and still offers nothing. This government has made their stance clear: supporting those who care for our seniors is not a priority.”

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