Workers at LutherCare group home serve strike notice for Wednesday

Community service workers for LutherCare Communities Group Homes (LCGH) have served a strike notice to their employer.

The strike is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. on Wednesday.

“This action will result in some services being withdrawn by our members, and those services will have to be taken care of by management,” Barbara Cape, president of SEIU-West, said in a media release.

“There’s time to avoid the withdrawal of services, but the ball is in the Employer’s court to put forward a fair deal to settle a long overdue collective agreement.”

According to the release which was sent out on Monday, negotiations between LCGH and Service Employees’ International Union-West (SEIU-West) — which represent the workers — have stalled.

SEIU-West has been bargaining about the need for living wages and the introduction of National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and for employees to have two consecutive days off to rest from a week’s toil.

“The Employer seems ambivalent to our members’ need for respect, fairness, and a living wage,” Cape said. “Let’s be clear, everyone deserves a weekend, even if it’s not the traditional Saturday and Sunday.”

The release stated that shifts have become shorter to the point where even full-time staff find themselves working seven days a week on “a continuous basis.”

“There’s still the issue of the Employer offering the statutory holiday, National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, to out-of-scope managers, but not the staff working on the frontline of the homes,” Cape said.

650 CKOM reached out to LCGH for comment but did not immediately receive a response.