Employees of a number of social services in Prince Rupert voted on Tuesday whether or not to go on strike.
The vote affects the Community Living and General Services sections of the BC Government and Services Employee Union, which has been in negotiations with the Community Social Services Employer Association over three different collective agreements for the past several months.
In Prince Rupert this could mean a number of social services will be forced to either shut down or cut back to the bare essentials during a strike.
These organizations include the women’s aid organization, the North Coast Transition Society, which provides a number of resources to abused women and children and also runs a women’s shelter known as Transition House. Also affected will be Fairview Management Services, which helps adults with intellectual disabilities in Prince Rupert. Lastly, it will affect Prince Rupert Community Enrichment Society, which helps to support families who have children with developmental delays.
James Cavaluzzo is the chairperson of the union’s bargaining committee in charge of the province-wide negotiations. He says that just because there may be a strike does not necessarily mean that the women’s shelter will end up being unstaffed.
“There is an ‘essential services’ designation for our sector. So what we do is sit down with each employer to determine what services are considered essential . . . In a smaller community, it is possible that the Transition House would be considered essential because there may be no other options,” says Cavaluzzo.
According to the union the major issues in the negotiations has not been wage increases or benefit improvements because the province doesn’t have the money to spend on those things. What they have been pushing for is employment security; in other words, they want to prevent further cuts to positions and put in place disincentives to prevent employers from changing contract holders.