Workers at Queens Association for Supported Living, QASL, in Milton, Nova Scotia have voted in favour of taking job action. After 18 months at the table, 87% of members who cast their ballot voted yes to a strike mandate.
“QASL is holding our proposals hostage in order to get theirs,” said CUPE 4963 President Kaelee Baker. “That’s not how bargaining works. We want to fairly negotiate each item, and they want us to trade in our priorities for theirs. We will not accept concessions, and we will not be bullied into giving up protections we need.”
Outstanding is the issue of paid training, with workers seeking a provision ensuring that any education or training requirements that are added as a result of the implementation of what is commonly referred to as ‘the remedy’ would be paid for by the employer.
The remedy refers to the five-year plan ordered by the province’s human rights Board of Inquiry to address discrimination against persons with disabilities in their access to social assistance. QASL typically covers the cost of required education for employees—a point that Executive Director Charlene Park highlighted in a recent anti-union communication to employees.
This item was negotiated at the lead table by the CUPE Nova Scotia Long-Term Care & Community Services Coordinating Committee, representing all CUPE locals in these two sectors in the province. The Department of Community Services, along with 20 other DCS employers, have all agreed to this language in agreements reached this year.
QASL is the only employer refusing to cover this possible expense. Instead, they are asking workers to accept a concession in exchange for this proposal. They want workers to accept an 80-hour cap to banked time off, which members say will result in the employer not granting paid time off.
“Our time banks make sure the employer actually grants us the paid time off we’re entitled to,”Baker said. “When each worker’s time bank grows, it puts pressure on the employer to grant us vacation and other time off requests. A cap on banked time would remove that pressure—meaning it’ll be harder for us to get our time off. It is not our fault that this is the only way we can get our time off requests. It shouldn’t fall to workers to resolve a problem QASL has created for all of us.”
The Canadian Union of Public Employees represents 43 workers (including residential counsellors and program instructors) at Queens Association for Supported Living (QASL), and Local 4963 are the last of 21 CUPE locals in the Department of Community Services sector to remain at the table in this round of bargaining.