It’s been a long road for more than 230 health-care workers at West Vancouver’s Inglewood Care Centre who ratified their first collective agreement this week.
The starting wage for a care aide has increased by nine per cent to $17.25 per hour, under the new five-year agreement with SimpeQ Care — the latest Inglewood subcontractor, of which there have been five since 2003.
More importantly, SimpeQ Care has agreed to hire the majority of the care aides into equivalent positions they held with the previous contractor at the 235-bed facility, said the Hospital Employees’ Union, which represents the Inglewood workers.
“So, they are pretty happy that they’ve come out the other end of this situation with jobs and the ability to continue to provide consistent care to these seniors,” said HEU spokesman Mike Old.
The agreement comes after CareCorp, the contractor that had been operating at Inglewood since 2011, walked away in May following a year-and-a-half-long effort on the part of the HEU to secure a fair deal for the workers.
“It’s our view that they (CareCorp) were never very serious about trying to bargain a first contract with us,” said Old. “They kind of wanted us to go away. We didn’t.”
There were fears that some of the care aides would lose their jobs when Inglewood went to a new contractor, but those concerns did not come to pass. “And happily it appears that most of the workers were rehired,” said Old.
Inglewood’s care aides were earning the same wage as they did 20 years ago, before this new contract — which provides for a one per cent pay hike over the five years, and an additional week of vacation after the first year — was signed on June 5.
“But I think what it does point out is that the wages CareCorp were paying were really pretty low — and they needed to improve,” said Old.
North Vancouver-based SimpeQ is no stranger to Inglewood, as they operated at the care home before CareCorp took over. At that time it was Unicare, the owners of Inglewood, that cancelled its contract with SimpeQ, said Old, adding that contract flipping is commonplace in the industry as a way to keep wages down.
Unicare did not respond to a request for comment by the News’ deadline.
