Riverview Gardens employees held an information picket in Chatham outside of the Civic Centre on Monday April 9, to bring awareness about an ongoing vacation time booking issue.
Officials with Unifor Local 127, who represent the employees, said in a press release that Riverview Gardens staff have been struggling with having their vacation time approved by the management at Riverview Gardens.
“The issue is not ‘new’, it has been one of concern for many years,” union officials say.
“Unifor has had countless meetings with the management over a number of years to find a resolution that works for the Members and the Municipality. Countless solutions have been suggested, always keeping the residents needs first and foremost, most of which can be logically and easily implemented, however all of these ideas have been dismissed and a positive outcome has never been reached.”
Unifor Local 127 officials say in many cases employees who have been at the workplace for 15 years or more are denied their vacation requests.
“We would like the management to take our plight seriously, work together, not against each other, to implement a vacation system that is followed in order to allow the Members to utilize their vacation time,” union officials said.
“We need to be fair to those who care, otherwise we risk caregiver burnout.”
Municipality of Chatham-Kent officials say the Riverview Gardens vacation issue is being addressed
Municipal officials say Chatham-Kent is taking ongoing steps to alleviate vacation scheduling pressures at the municipality’s long-term care facility.
“Last year at this time we developed short and long term strategies to deal with staffing issues and collective agreement language that, among other things, makes it difficult to approve all of the vacation requests for the summer season,” stated Cathy Hoffman, Chatham-Kent’s chief human resources officer.
“The difficulty attracting and retaining personal support workers continues across the province and we have a meeting booked this week with Unifor regarding ongoing short and long term solutions to the issue.”
Hoffman said there has been a decline in the number of students entering PSW programs.
“That, coupled with normal turnover, has left us with fewer workers than we would like to have,” she said.
“We are currently working in partnership with Chatham-Kent’s Employment and Social Services, Riverview Gardens and the Workforce Planning Board on a study to examine this issue and generate sustainable solutions for the sector. This project is being funded by The Ministry of Advanced Skills and Development.”
Hoffman said residents’ care and safety has not been compromised, however, the current challenges have led to decreased flexibility in scheduling.
“Both management and the union continue to be committed to finding long term solutions to these various problems,” she said.
“We had some excellent discussions last year with Unifor about these matters and we’re optimistic about those already planned for this week again with Unifor.”
There are approximately 149 personal support workers at the facility which has 320 residents, municipal officials say.
