On Thursday evening, the SAIL board held a meeting to
inform user members/members
of the mediator recommendations. User members had three options to vote on:
1) accept the mediator's recommendation: this would put SAIL $100,000 in the hole in the first year (basically, bankrupt SAIL).
2)
decline the recommendation: keep fighting to reach a deal that SAIL can
afford to pay without going bankrupt, which will mean we members,
replacement workers, neighbours, etc. will have to endure the picketers' unruly antics indefinitely.
3) fold the SAIL program and ask/tell Alberta Health Services to
award the contract to another home health care provider (which would
probably be one of the big, for-profit, non-unionized companies who pay
their employees far less than we currently pay our SAIL employees!). We
would be losing control of our consumer-controlled, not-for-profit
Supports for Artspace Independent Living company and basically would be
losing partial control of our independent lives! The user members of
SAIL voted unanimously in favour of the number two option (with one
abstention).
In all three options above, the picketing SAIL staff have lost our trust and are no longer welcome in our homes!
Ken T.
(with editing assistance)
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