Breaking a Not-For-Profit to Pave the Way for a Big-Box Homecare Provider?
Like many members of the disability community in Edmonton, I was interested to read the recent Edmonton Journal story about a group of care seniors’ care workers at the Revera Churchill securing a voluntary, employer-sponsored RSP plan, part of a three-year contract that also increased wages, changed shift premiums and added health and sick-leave benefits. The employees, represented by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, negotiated for months and had assistance from an independent negotiator.
This successful negotiation stands in sharp contrast to the bitter, 4-month-long labour dispute which still rages between the AUPE and SAIL (Supports for Artspace Independent Living), a not-for-profit user-run homecare provider for people with disabilities who live in Artspace Co-Op. Throughout this conflict, AUPE picketers have routinely blocked/impeded everyone from residents, to DATS drivers, to mail carriers from entering or leaving the building. These picketers have caused public disturbances in a private, residential neighbourhood by chanting, singing and using bullhorns. All of this has resulted in Co-Op members with disabilities suffering stress-related illnesses. Yet, the intense conflict rages on, with no government minister, and no politician of any stripe, seemingly willing or able to work to broker a fair resolution and put an end to AUPE’s bullying and terrorizing of an entire community.
When further contrasting the ultimate resolution of the dispute between AUPE and Rivera with the ongoing conflict between AUPE and SAIL, one crucial difference becomes apparent. In the first case, the dispute was between Alberta’s largest union and a national, for-profit homecare provider. However, in the second case, Alberta’s largest union is demanding that a small, user-run, not-for-profit homecare provider, whose sole source of funding is Alberta Health Services, pay its healthcare aides the same wages as are earned by healthcare aides working for big for-profit companies and/or by healthcare aides working in large, long-term care facilities with exponentially larger client populations. Such a demand defies all logic. Even more baffling is AUPE’s apparent reticence to taking its demands for higher wages to Alberta Health Services, from which SAIL gets all its funding. Instead, AUPE seems quite content to simply continue to bully and terrorize the residents of Artspace.
This begs the question: What is AUPE’S real agenda in this dispute? Do they actually want a resolution with SAIL? Or, are they, in fact, doing all they can to make SAIL go under, so that AHS will bring in a big-box homecare provider, like Rivera, to take over the homecare contract at Artspace? In need of workers to meet the demands of the contract, the new homecare provider would have no qualms about rehiring AUPE members to provide intimate care to the very people that they have been terrorizing for months, regardless of the feelings or wishes of the homecare clients themselves.
It’s oft observed that a society is judged according to the way it treats its most vulnerable citizens. Considering the physical and psychological siege that AUPE is being allowed to wage, unhindered, against the residents of Artspace and the surrounding community, I’d say that Alberta has just hit a new low.
--
Heidi Janz, Ph.D
Adjunct Professor
John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre
It took a week for them to publish Heidi's letter, but in true Journal form, only 2 days for them to publish a response.
Two of them, even.
The first I will mention is written by someone in Sherwood Park, who is obviously uninformed. That doesn't stop her from making assumptions and being really insulting.
Re: “A study in contrasts,” Letters, Heidi Janz, Aug. 26
Why aren’t SAIL Inc., Artspace and Ms. Janz, dealing with the Alberta Health Services’ failure to properly fund their care? Why do they think they should be an exception to the AHS failure to provide sufficient resources for home-care services?
It’s presumptuous of SAIL, and Ms. Janz, to assume they have a right to exploit their employees just because that seems to be easier than trying to get a fair deal from AHS. They would find they have allies in that struggle.
Carol Wodak, Sherwood Park
Ms. Wodak's accusation that SAIL and Ms. Janz have the "right to exploit their employees" is not only incredibly insulting, but pure AUPE. She's spouting union talking points.
(BTW: Heidi doesn't have anything to do with the employees, but that doesn't seem to be stopping Ms. Wodak from assuming things).
It's awfully easy to just blame AHS, but it avoids the real problem, which is what AUPE is doing.
Also, the question of AHS funding is outside the scope of what's happening here at Artspace; that is an issue for the politicians, not SAIL.
Ah, but Carol is not just some concerned citizen from Sherwood Park. She neglected to include that she is a Director for Senior's Action Liaison Team. She's described as an "elder care activist." A quick search finds that her focus is on institutionalized care. Which is the complete opposite of what SAIL is about. Perhaps the most interesting find is this letter to her, from the Legislative Assembly, written back in 2008, where the Sherwood Park MLA is defending people's preferences to receive health care without being in institutions.
For someone who has such personal reasons to be an activist for elder care, you would think she would be fighting for people to live independently as they age, rather than AUPE's attempts to control the independent living market.
You would also think she would be able to do so without insulting those same people and accusing them of exploiting employees (after all, some of the user members need home care, not because they have various obvious disabilities, but because they've simply gotten older and need a bit of help). How incredibly offensive and degrading of the very people Ms. Wodak is supposedly fighting for.
(update: have been informed that Ms. Wodak actually used to live in Artspace many years ago, and was present when one of our members spoke on a panel trying to save SAIL - and those care workers' jobs - last year. Which makes her accusation that SAIL is exploiting employees that much more disturbing.)
Speaking of offensive and degrading.
Here is AUPE's response.
Aiming for equality
Re: “A study in contrasts,” Letters, Heidi Janz, Aug. 26
Ms. Janz asks the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees if it wants a resolution to the ongoing labour dispute with Supports for Artspace Independent Living.
The answer is yes. That’s why staff voted to accept the independent mediator’s recommendations for settlement July 29. On Aug. 1, SAIL rejected those same independent recommendations, extending the employer’s lockout outside the Artspace Housing Co-op indefinitely.
AUPE has offered to partner with SAIL to assist in its funding negotiations with Alberta Health Services numerous times. Every offer of assistance was rejected. SAIL has even indicated it’s happy with the funding it receives from AHS.
AUPE’s goal is to have the women working at SAIL treated as equals in the industry. The independent mediator recommended that too, but SAIL continues to fight against fair compensation for staff. Those who question SAIL’s agenda have been subjected to scorn and ridicule on social media.
You’d think that in a community like SAIL, the belief in equal treatment would extend to those who care for disabled residents at Artspace, too.
Karen Weiers, AUPE vice-president
In typical AUPE doublespeak, Karen (who is at least honest about who she is) tries to make AUPE out as some sort of hero, rather than the villain they really are. Of course, she neglects to mention that the mediator's recommendation would have bankrupted SAIL - after all, AUPE has been busily accusing SAIL of fraud and "bad faith bargaining" to justify ignoring SAIL's financials.
As for her claims of AUPE's offers of help, I will have to leave that to others to respond to, but it's a bit like saying the lion has offered to "partner" with the lamb over what's for dinner.
Then she tries to go the "equality" route. SAIL's employees were, of course, treated with equality, and they were fairly compensated for the work they did, but to AUPE, equality means something very different. To them, equality is not about people being of equal worth, but of a forced equality of outcome.
Meaning, of course, money.
Oh, oh!! And look! She complains that "those who question SAIL's agenda have been subjected to scorn and ridicule on social media."
Suddenly, it's SAIL that has an agenda. AUPE is very good at accusing SAIL of what they, themselves, are doing.
Scary, scary, SAIL, a non-profit run by a volunteer board, has an AGENDA people! Run! Run for the hills!
Those nasty people with wheelchairs and walkers and canes dare to want to live independently!
They want to have control over their own health care!
AAAAaaahhhh!!! We can't have that! We can't have people who *gasp* can actually THINK FOR THEMSELVES!!!
The horror!
Oh, yes, and how dare the plebeians question their betters! Remember, only AUPE is allowed to heap scorn and ridicule on people. Like... oh, Ms. Weiers herself.
Here's Ms. Weiers, on the picket line, just a few days ago. Moments before this photo was taken, she had her face plastered against the window, where she was busily heaping scorn and ridicule on the replacement workers outside. She's been out here quite a lot, fully participating in the abuse of our community.
Then she whines that AUPE's drones are getting flack through social media?
HelloOOOooo. Welcome to teh internetz.
And then she hits the low blow.
You’d think that in a community like SAIL, the belief in equal treatment would extend to those who care for disabled residents at Artspace, too.
How utterly insulting and degrading to the people who fought to be treated like human beings, worthy of living independent lives, in their own homes, and capable of having a say in their own care, rather than being farmed off and hidden away in institutions. You know, for REAL human rights, not entitlements and unearned privileges. What gall for a woman, who has condoned and participated in the abuse of our community, to make such an offensive statement.
Sorry, Deary, but you don't get to play the victim card when you are the villain. Especially when the people who are supposedly so oppressed just held a woman hostage for 4 hours only 2 days ago.
Oh, and Karen, SAIL is not a community. SAIL is a company. A company run by a volunteer board that are also Artspace members. A company that is consumer driven by people who are Artspace members. Some of the board members are also SAIL users.
Which makes it laughably ridiculous - and dishonest - for her to suggest that SAIL, the company, doesn't have an interest in the care of Artspace user members.
Spoken like someone with utter contempt for the disabled - a contempt we have seen from AUPE throughout this entire ordeal.
You can wail away about how it's all about "equality" all you want; AUPE's actions speak louder than their talking points.
It's about money - for AUPE.
It's about power - for AUPE.
It's about control - in the hands of AUPE.
Control over the lives of those least able to defend themselves against the AUPE juggernaut.
The elderly and disabled.
I wonder if Ms. Wodak would be so supportive, if she saw just what AUPE picketers have been doing to our community?
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