Nova Scotia nursing homes workers remain on strike, family members say quality of care is being impacted

Employees say they’re hoping for higher wages, safer working conditions, and more at long-term care homes within the province. Paul Hollingsworth reports.

Everyday Steve Sellers takes his 76-year-old mother Sharon for a walk around the Halifax neighbourhood near St. Vincent’s Nursing Home, where his mother now lives.

“She has been here is just about six years,” said Sellers.

Sellers has checked in on her daily, while 3,100 long-term care workers continue to walk the picket lines at 34 nursing home facilities across Nova Scotia.

They have been on strike since April 13, asking for more money and better benefits.

Sellers said he sides with the workers, not the government, but he is also frustrated because the strike is impacting the quality of care his mother is receiving as she lives with dementia.

“There are programs that aren’t happening, activities,” said Sellers, who is also unhappy with her meals. “It is very minimal right now as far as the choices (go).”

Tabitha Khoury agrees. He father has lived in a nursing home for the past year and is diagnosed with brain cancer.

“I have seen not clean rooms, not clean beds and not clean bedsheets,” said Khoury.

The Canadian Union of Public Workers (CUPE) is representing striking employees and is not optimistic the strike will end anytime soon.

“We are too far apart to manage to reach a deal,” said CUPE long-term care co-ordinator Kim Cail, who added the latest offer from the government, which would see some of these workers make slightly more than $23 an hour, was rejected.

“The union has significantly moved off what their monetary position was back in March, and it was lowered quite a bit, but we are looking for adjustments for every classification, to bring them up to living wage.”

To earn what they classify as a living wage, the union said salaries should be closer to $30 an hour.

According to the Nova Scotia provincial, they have offered fair increases across the board.

“We have put forward a competitive offer of 12-to-24 per cent, plus a 70 per cent increase in shift premium, a defined pension benefit and retroactive pay going back to 2023,” said Nova Scotia Seniors and Long-term Care Minister, Barb Adams. “We are asking CUPE to take the offer to their members.”

This strike is different than some other work stoppages.

Staffing levels at nursing homes impacted by the strike are running at 80 per cent and many workers continue to provide care based on an essential service agreement with the province.

Khoury applauds the overall effort but said a lot of work is not getting done.

“It is impossible to do everything that is essential for seniors at these locations,” she said.

According to a CUPE representative, many of the strikers are on the job for 12 hours and then after their shift they go outside to and walk the picket line for another four hours -- and those efforts will continue until the strike ends.