News & Events
Home support workers demand pay increase NB workers
are lowest paid in Canada
October 31, 2008
By KATHY BOCKUS
kathy@stcroixcourier.ca
ST. STEPHEN – Crystal Madsen had to borrow money from her daughter one day to buy enough gas to go to work.
She makes $8 an hour as one of 70 home care workers employed by Home Support Services throughout Charlotte County. The majority of the people served by this agency are senior citizens who reside in their own homes, people Madsen says would otherwise have to be hospitalized or placed in a nursing home.
“If we can keep them at home where they want to be, that’s our goal,” said Madsen. “But we can’t do that if we can’t afford to make a living.”
Madsen and others like her gathered at the Home Support Services office in St. Stephen Monday night to voice their concerns to Charlotte-Campobello Conservative MLA Tony Huntjens. They told him the work they do is comparable to that performed by workers in nursing homes who make between $14 and $16 per hour. Home care agencies are funded by the province’s Department of Social Development while nursing homes are funded by the Department of Health.
Madsen gets 36 cents per kilometre for mileage expenses, but only for distances travelled after she reaches the home of her first client. Because of the rural nature of the agency’s client base, Madsen often has to travel up to 40 kilometres to reach that first client of the day.
That meeting with Huntjens came as a result of action taken following the filing of a report on Oct. 16 with the New Brunswick Home Support Association by a consultant hired to review a labour market strategy developed by that association and the New Brunswick Department of Advanced Education and Labour.
The consultant was empowered to take the 10 areas identified as needing improvement - such as wages, working conditions, education and gas mileage - and find solutions for each.
Trudy Higgins, executive director of Home Support Services in St. Stephen, said New Brunswick home care workers are the lowest paid in the country.
She said the consultant’s initial findings were presented to the association and none was disagreed with. The concern is, she said, how the problems can be solved.
One recommendation was for the 41 member agencies within the province to encourage their 3,000 workers to publicly air their concerns in the hopes the government would listen and then increase funding to the agencies so the agencies in turn could increase things like wages and gas mileage.
The association has also opened up its membership to the workers allowing them, said Higgins, to gain a voice as members of the larger group.
Member agencies have encouraged staff to become more vocal, a step the workers in Charlotte County took by meeting with Huntjens.
Huntjens says he intends to take their concerns to the province because, as far as he’s concerned, home care workers perform a vital service that he feels saves government money in the long run by keeping people in their homes longer instead of having to be cared for in hospital or nursing homes.
“When you equate it all, I think it’s important we respect their contribution and pay them an adequate salary,” said Huntjens, who stated when the Conservatives formed the provincial government, they tried to increase workers’ annual incomes.
“Even then I don’t believe it was enough,” he said, adding he feels a wage increase for the workers is long overdue.
Huntjens said he plans to present the workers’ issues to Social Development Minister Mary Schryer. He says it will then become her responsibility to lobby for them at the cabinet table.
Is he optimistic the government will do anything?
“No,” Huntjens said.
Huntjens says it’s his responsibility to take the message to the minister and make sure she gets it, but he can’t dictate what the government is going to do.
“I can remind them that they have that obligation to make sure these services are provided.”
He remarked that with today’s high gas prices, he didn’t know how the home care workers could afford to work.
Madsen has worked for Home Support Services for the last year and a half and is in the midst of completing her training as a certified Personal Support Worker through an at-home study course. She said she runs her vehicle into the ground on the rural country roads she travels.
She said training is important for the workers because if agencies get trained workers they can keep them longer. Madsen said she’d like to see levels of training established for the home care workers resulting in varying levels of pay, starting out at $12 per hour.
Higgins said Home Support Services charges $13.61 per hour for care for its 200 clients. From that it must pay the worker’s salary as well as mileage fees. Based on the current contract with the government and hours of service it provided, the agency was paid last year a little over $44,000 for mileage.
“We paid out $125,000. The difference comes out of the $13.61 we’re paid,” Higgins said.
The agency also has to pay about $36,000 annually in fees for Work Safe New Brunswick (workers compensation) from money received from the hourly rate they charge. Those fees are the highest of any industry in the province, said Higgins.
Higgins said she feels the public doesn’t relate to home care workers like it does to workers in nursing homes.
“The general public can relate to employees who work in a building. We’re caring for 200 clients in their own homes, very frail, old people, who have very little family or a busy family,” said Higgins. “For the public, this is not something they can see. These people have no voice, so our staff has no voice.”
The public and families of those receiving home care are also being encouraged to write letters to the editor and to their MLA seeking changes for home care workers.
“We’re asking people to write letters, speak out, do something that will help us,” said Higgins. “This is pre-budget time. If there is going to be any consideration for our industry, this is time for it to happen.”
