N.B. premier issues back-to-work order for CUPE health-care workers

Tense moments in N.B. labour dispute New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs makes pitch for a deal with striking CUPE workers, then orders health-care staff back on the job. Laura Brown reports.

HALIFAX — New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs has ordered CUPE health-care workers in the province to return to work, under the province’s mandatory emergency order.

“We are issuing a mandatory order and ordering health-care workers back to work. This is not a step we take lightly,” said Higgs during a news update on Friday afternoon. “The pandemic, coupled with the strike has put too much pressure on our hospitals, and the dedicated staff who are trying to keep them going. Immediate action has to be taken to ensure that we are able to keep New Brunswickers safe.”

The emergency order forces striking workers in the health-care sector to return to work by Friday at midnight.

The mandatory order does not impact other CUPE workers outside of health care.

“We’re not questioning the validity of the legal strike. We are acting, in a pandemic, under an emergency order, to deal directly with the health and safety of all New Brunswickers and we need to recognize the system urgently needs to be addressed,” said Higgs.

During Friday’s update, representatives from both Horizon Health and Vitalité Health spoke about the issues facing health-care facilities in the province.

“We were asked to assess this daily and let the government know when we were broken,” said Dr. John Dornan, interim CEO of Horizon Health. “We are broken to the point where people’s health are in jeopardy. We need help. We need essential workers to come in.”

According to Dornan, over 240 surgeries and over 10,000 tests and procedures have been cancelled in Horizon Health facilities, and 13 cases were waiting for emergency surgery on Thursday alone.

“We do not have a buffer of employees. When there is a strike, and we move down to essential employees, we start to see a build-up in the surgeries we don’t do. We start to see an increase in the number of people who wait for vaccinations and testing in our community. We start to see a back-up of garbage, a back-up of dirty trays, and it grows,” said Dornan.

“The health care system was already strained due to the pandemic, and the situation has gotten worse over the past week,” added N.B. Health Minister Dorothy Shephard during Friday’s news update. “Due to the CUPE strike, COVID-19 assessment centres have been impacted by closures or experiencing a significant reduction in capacity. Cleaning services in hospitals are also being affected by the strike, resulting in longer than normal times to prepare rooms for new patients, and sanitary levels below COVID-19 protocols.”

Higgs says the province met with CUPE leaders for nine hours on Thursday and gave an offer that was “agreed to be acceptable.”

The strike involves school bus drivers, educational support staff and workers in health, transportation, corrections and the community college system.

The union issued a statement in response to the order, calling the government's decision "heavy handed."

"The Premier is using the pandemic situation to force workers back to work instead of respecting the negotiation process," it wrote.

Before the back-to-work order had been issued, CUPE union president Steve Drost told reporters Friday it was too soon to say if his members would respect it.

"I can tell you there's a lot of very angry people," Drost said. "They are so fed up. It's very volatile. It's a time bomb and there's no need of it. (Higgs is) putting the New Brunswick population at risk."

The union released the details of the government's proposal and the union's counter-proposal. The government offered a wage increase of two per cent per year for five years as well as a 25-cent-per-hour increase each year. It also proposed pension changes for two locals.

The government's proposed changes would switch workers in one local to a shared-risk model for their pension, which offers benefits to members to the extent that funds remain available and doesn't guarantee that benefits will never be reduced. The government is also offering to extend pensions to another group that currently doesn't have one.

The union said it countered with a pay raise of two per cent per year over five years, as well as an extra 25-cent-per-hour raise for the first three years, followed by a 50-cent increase per hour in the final two years. But key to the counter-proposal was the removal of the pension changes.

"We're here to negotiate wages," Drost told reporters.

Higgs told the news conference that the government had offered to refer the pension issue to a pair of actuaries for assessment.

Earlier in the day, Higgs took the microphone at a CUPE news conference to appeal to members for an end to the strike, but Drost said the union was still waiting for the government to respond to the latest union counter-offer. Drost said his union was willing to call its members back to work rather than wait for a ratification vote.

"Each and every one of you could have been back to work this morning," Drost said to a few hundred striking members gathered on the front lawn of the legislature. "You could have been in there getting the schools ready for Monday. You could have been in there getting the laundry straightened around in the hospitals."

Then Drost addressed Higgs directly: "You want a deal? You come out right now and let's settle this."

Higgs arrived at the news conference a few minutes later, walking through the crowd of striking workers and asking to address them.

"We need to have a solution here," Higgs told the crowd.

Green Leader David Coon and interim Liberal Leader Roger Melanson both condemned the government's back-to-work order and both quit the government's all-party COVID-19 cabinet committee in protest.

"This situation is pure chaos," Melanson wrote in a statement. "The Premier must put aside his ego, stop obsessing over the pensions and come to an agreement of fair and competitive wages."

HORIZON MOVES LABOUR AND BIRTH SERVICES FROM WATERVILLE TO FREDERICTON

Horizon Health announced in a news release Friday evening that it is moving labour and birth services from the Upper River Valley Hospital (URVH) in Waterville to the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital in Fredericton.

"Persistent, temporary closures of the labour and birth service at Horizon’s URVH due to nursing and physician shortages and to care for COVID-19 patients have created uncertainties for obstetrics patients and their care teams," Horizon Health said in a news release. "Efforts to recruit nursing staff and physicians is ongoing but has not proven to be enough."

Horizon said similar changes have been successfully implemented for the communities of Perth-Andover, St. Stephen, Sussex and Sackville and said this is a long-term solution, not something that is only being done because of the pandemic.

"Expectant mothers and these families are encouraged to plan ahead, knowing they will be delivering their babies in Fredericton," Horizon said in the release. "This is the safest alternative for their care and that of their baby and will provide stability and certainty around where they will be delivering."

With files from The Canadian Press.