People driving near Picton are likely to see picketers standing outside of Revera Hallowell House Long Term Care Home for the foreseeable future.
Staff are protesting impending layoffs to nine staff members, including seven personal support workers and two registered practical nurses, that are happening as a result of a new mandate from the provincial government.
The mandate dictates that, due to lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of residents in one ward room must be reduced from four to two.
As a result, resident capacity at Hallowell House will be reduced from 98 to 68 and Revera, the company that owns Hallowell House, announced the layoffs.
Kathleen Brooks, President of Unifor Local 8300, tells Quinte News that workers are protesting the layoffs in front of the long term care home from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. until they get a concrete answer from Revera on what’s next.
She said that they offered a list of possible alternative solutions that would save the jobs including eliminating one Assistant Director of Care role, implementing four-hour care now instead of in 2025, buying out employees that are close to retirement and asking them to end contracted-out services and to assign those duties to workers they already have.
She said that initially Revera declined all their suggestions but on Tuesday they said they would consider them.
“I really hope they are considering our suggestions. I hope it wasn’t an answer that they gave hoping that we would just then silently pack up and go away. We can’t pack up and go away until we have concrete decisions on whether or not they will employ our suggestions or follow through with their layoffs and if they follow through with the layoffs we will continue with our action.”
She said the layoffs were originally slated to begin August 28 but were extended by one full schedule which she says is now due to come out, but hasn’t, which has left a lot of workers scrambling to figure out things like childcare without knowing when they work.
According to Brooks, reducing staff at a time when the long term care sector is desperate for workers, and with the possibility of a fourth wave of COVID-19 imminent, could have serious ramifications.
“Basically, this is not a time to reduce your staff in any long term care centres. It’s a time to up staff and increase, not only to prepare for COVID and the fourth wave, but because the long term care centres are so grossly understaffed as it is. It’s not the time reduce your staff. And maybe having the staffing levels that they have right now, maybe that just means that they’re properly staffed now as opposed to when they had 30 other residents in the building.
She said the picketers have adopted the mantra “Not Today Revera” and that until they get a concrete answer from the company on whether or not they’ll follow through on the layoffs, they’ll be picketing every day.
