Wood Buffalo Housing pushes staff to the street

Lockout notice served to employees

FORT MCMURRAY, AB, May 6, 2019 /CNW/ - Wood Buffalo Housing (WBH) served its 49 employees lock out notice today, meaning that as of Friday at 4:30 pm, employees will be forced to hit the picket lines.

CUPE Local 1505 President Judy Collier said her members do not want to stop serving residents and the community, but the WBH is forcing their hands.

"Wood Buffalo Housing wants to lay off groundskeepers, maintenance staff, and housekeepers and replace them with minimum wage contractors without benefits," said Collier. "Not only will that not save money, it will result in poorly maintained properties. And nobody is better off with that."

"This is not about wages. This is about our members wanting to do what they were hired to do ? take care of residents and their homes."

Collier said CUPE knows from past experience that contracting out doesn't actually save any money, as most of the lost wages are still paid to the contractor.

"Over at Keyano College, they are replacing cleaning contractors with in house staff because they're not saving money. Contractors pay their staff minimum wage but charge the college $26/hour.  We see this over and over again across Canada."

"It's better to just pay staff a living wage and get better service for it."

Collier says her members are ready to stand up for residents, even if it means getting locked out by their employer.

"If WBH wants to save money, they can and should work with their employees to find efficiencies," said Collier. "That's how you build a strong company, and how you serve your residents best."

"Someone has to stand up for our community here, because WBH sure isn't."

SOURCE Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)