On September 13, 7 pm, CUPE is holding an important webinar: Pharma profits or health justice? Mobilizing for universal pharmacare.

Supported by the Canadian Health Coalition, Council of Canadians, and Canadian Doctors for Medicare and expert panelists, including from the Canadian Labour Congress and NDP, you’ll find out why this is an important moment in history for health justice and why we need to mobilize!

Are you a CUPE member? Are you a health care worker? Are you a social justice activist? As union and social justice activists, we need to gather in solidarity and fight back.

The unions representing health care providers in Saskatchewan are questioning the creation of the Saskatchewan Health Care Recruitment Agency.

“This is just another layer of bureaucratic smoke and mirrors. The government is under pressure to do something – but instead of implementing actual programs they created this Crown corporation,” said Bashir Jalloh, President of CUPE 5430. “The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) already has resources and a robust out-of-scope workforce, some of whom are dedicated to workforce planning and human resources. They are funded by and directed by the Ministry of Health. Why do they need another structure to do the job of recruitment and retention?”

We hope you are enjoying your summer and that you were able to take the vacation you were hoping for. We understand the realities of our workplaces right now, so we know many of you didn’t and we hope you reached out to your regional offices or the reps in your facilities for assistance where it was needed.

Your Bargaining Committee wanted to reach out to you to let know about some happenings in the last little while.

You are likely all aware of the AIMS implementation struggles over the last several years. It is a work in progress and appears to be slated for implementation on September 25, 2022.

You should also be aware that CUPE and the SHA recently negotiated a one-year collective agreement extension which included many provisions set to become implemented on October 23, 2022. These include CUPE-wide seniority, bidding rights and postings. This language was duly negotiated, agreed upon and ratified.

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REGINA: In a recent media release, the Sask. Party government announced it was moving forward with surgical privatization, including contracting out surgeries to for- profit providers, and shipping patients out of province for surgery in private clinics.

“Sixty years ago, the people of Saskatchewan came together to create universal Medicare. It is disappointing that our current government seems to be doing everything in its power to move the clock backwards and privatize our health care system,” said Bashir Jalloh, president of CUPE 5430.

“Contracting out surgeries is not a magic wand for wait times. In fact, there is little evidence to show that contracting out will result in shorter wait times. We point to Saskatchewan’s own MRI wait lists which have increased since the government implemented a two-tier system. Even in the case of private surgeries, these patients end up coming back to the public system for follow up. Home care and therapies are just a couple of programs that are also experiencing backlogs,” added Jalloh.

Your Bargaining Committee continues to prepare for the next round of negotiations.
We recently spent four days reviewing the bargaining survey and assessing the 169 thoughtful and comprehensive bargaining
proposals we received.
Wages were identified as your unequivocal priority.
And they should be, based on a presentation prepared by CUPE Research. We were informed that despite the gloomy financial
reports the government keeps trying to have us believe, things are actually not so bad. Here are a few facts we learned:

• This year's projected deficit is $463 million – last year the projection was $2.6 billion
• The deficit is projected to be eliminated by the 2026-27 fiscal year
• The Conference Board of Canada, RBC Economics and BMO each project significant economic growth for Saskatchewan in
  2022 with the average being 5.9%
• The Conference Board of Canada projects that Saskatchewan will lead the nation in economic growth
• The Provincial Budget is forecasting a 3.7% and 2.5% increase in real GDP for 2022 and 2023 respectively

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The Government of Saskatchewan is soliciting proposals from non-profit and for-profit corporations to provide 375 standard long-term care beds within Regina.
These beds would, in part, replace the standard beds at Regina Pioneer Village, which is a publicly run, Saskatchewan Health Authority facility.

“It appears the provincial government has learned nothing about the failing of for-profit delivery of long-term care during the pandemic,” said Bashir Jalloh, president of CUPE Local 5430. “There is strong evidence that shows private, for-profit long-term care facilities have lower staffing levels, which creates poor quality of care and requires residents to pay more for the care they need out of their own pocket.”