Negotiations between AUPE and Carewest reach impasse
CALGARY – After three bargaining dates in January, negotiations between long-term care provider Carewest and the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees have reached an impasse.
“Bargaining with Carewest has not gone well,” said AUPE Staff Negotiator Ken Cutrell, who leads the union bargaining committee.
“Other public and private continuing-care providers in Alberta continue to negotiate and reach fair agreements with AUPE,” Cutrell said. “But Carewest is making excuses not to reach agreements that follow the pattern set by the contracts ratified last year between AUPE and health region employers.”
Cutrell said AUPE and Carewest have one more bargaining meeting planned, at a date to be set soon.
“If we are unable to reach an agreement at that meeting that follows the same pattern as that being agreed to by all other employers in the sector, AUPE will apply immediately for the assistance of a provincially appointed mediator to help us reach an agreement,” Cutrell said.
AUPE represents approximately 700 Auxiliary Nursing Care and General Support Service employees of Carewest, which operates nine continuing-care facilities in the Calgary area.
The Carewest employees represented by the union are members of five separate chapters of Local 048.
Carewest is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Calgary Health Region.
Alberta’s health regions will cease to exist as legal entities on April 1, 2009.
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