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Council to urge HEABC to allow long-term care facility to negotiate with HEU

Care aides from the Pleasant View Care Home have won the support of Mission Council in their fight to preserve quality resident care services and save their jobs.

After listening to a presentation by a delegation of Pleasant View care aides on the impact of contracting out on the quality of care for seniors Monday evening, Mission Council all voted in favour of writing to the Health Employers Association of B.C. asking that its member residential care facilities, including the Pleasant View Housing Society, be allowed to negotiate directly with the Hospital Employees’ Union in order to avoid laying off long-time staff and contracting out their work.

HEU spokesperson Zorica Bosancic welcomed Council’s support and called on Pleasant View officials again to meet with the union.

“Pleasant View has an opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to quality seniors’ care and its appreciation of long-serving, experienced caregivers by sitting down and negotiating a new contract immediately,” said Bosancic. “It’s the right thing to do for the residents, for the workers and for the community of Mission.”

Council also passed a complementary motion to inform the Union of B.C. Municipalities about the situation at Pleasant View as an example of what is happening to long-term care for seniors in B.C.

Despite widespread public concern about the contracting out of resident care services at Pleasant View, the administrator may go ahead and layoff 46 residential attendants (care aides), activity workers and maintenance staff before the end of the week. The facility’s housekeeping, laundry and food services employees lost their jobs earlier this year and their work has been contracted out to a private company.