By Brittany Hobson
Talks with employers have stalled days before thousands of health-care workers are set to strike in Manitoba, says their union.
The Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, which represents 7,000 allied health professionals working in public health care, met with employers Sunday.
“We still have not enough movement for us to be able to consider making a deal at this time,” union president Jason Linklater said Monday.
“If the Manitoba government wants to avoid a strike and keep their promise to health-care workers and to Manitobans to fix the health-care system, they are going to have to step up and commit additional funding to this process.”
Nearly all members voted in January in favour of a strike, with 96 per cent agreeing to job action.
They have been without a contract for nearly a year.
The union has given until Friday to reach an agreement that addresses concerns about wages and retention.
Linklater wouldn’t provide specifics on what kind of wage increase members are looking for, instead saying they wish to be on par with what professionals in other jurisdictions are receiving.
“We are looking to make up for lost ground,” he said.
Negotiations began last April. No further bargaining meetings have been scheduled for this week, added Linklater.
Shared Health, which is negotiating on behalf of employers, said in a statement that it’s committed to bargaining in good faith.
“We remain hopeful an agreement will be reached. Essential service agreements are being reviewed to ensure safe patient/resident/client care,” said the provincial health authority.
The union represents a range of professionals across dozens of public health sectors, including paramedics, physiotherapists, midwives and social workers.
Linklater said a strike would likely mean significant service disruptions across the province — delays in ultrasounds and radiation treatments, backlogs in patients being released from emergency rooms and longer wait times for non-emergent patient transports in rural areas.
If there is a strike, service agreements are in place with the Winnipeg and northern health authorities as well as Shared Health to ensure a designated number of employees would continue to provide essential services. While it varies across each discipline, Linklater said it would work out to an average reduction rate of 40 per cent.
This is the second time in two years the members have voted in favour of a strike. They threatened job action in 2023 after going without a contract for more than five years. A deal was put in place retroactively and expired last year.
“An allied health strike is untested. Manitoba has not seen this actually come to fruition,” said Linklater.
“A strike is not something that we want. Our goal is to ensure that we are creating a stable allied health sector and certainly that’s the only way to comprehensively fix health care.”
