The IUOE, Local 882 and other unions are calling on the provincial government to protect seniors and reverse a decision by Retirement Concepts to reduce levels at the Dufferin Care Centre in Coquitlam, and put the company’s province world-wide operations under review.

The provincial government, through the Fraser Health Authority, funds 128 beds for seniors who require long-term care.

Retirement Concepts subcontracts care at Dufferin Care Centre but tightly controls staffing decisions. The subcontractor has been told by Retirement Concepts to reduce staffing by about 115 hours a week, effective March 10/ 2008. Most of the cuts will be to care aide hours.

Care aides provide personal care to seniors, including assistance with toileting, bathing, dressing and meals.

The government needs to take steps to reverse the planned cuts and put Retirement Concepts’ staffing decisions under close review.

Given this company’s track record, it’s time for the provincial government to intervene on behalf of seniors and put Retirement Concepts’ staffing decisions under a microscope -  not just at Dufferin Care Centre -  but at all other government-subsidized facilities it operates.

The province also needs to review the company’s books to determine whether Retirement Concepts is squeezing excess profits from its government subsidy, at the expense of quality care for seniors.

In April 2007, the BC government, following on the heels of Ontario, announced its plan to eliminate mandatory retirement as of January 1, 2008. The change is intended to “extend protection from age discrimination to those 65 and over.” Abolishment of mandatory retirement has already taken place in New Brunswick, Manitoba, Quebec, Alberta, Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Yukon and Prince Edward Island. It’s pending for Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Wally Oppal, the Attorney General, stated the change came out of a review by Council on Aging and Seniors’ Issues: “The council identified the Human Rights Code amendments as the key to its vision of British Columbia as a province where older people can remain involved and interact with others in their communities their roles that are respected and valued.”

In addition to adhering to the vision of the Human Rights Code, the change comes at a time of changing demographics and a labour shortage in BC; at a time when it makes sense to keep experienced people in the workforce for as long as possible. The number of people over 65 is expected to double within the quarter century. This will coincide with more than 1 million jobs opening up over the next decade. Meanwhile, there are not likely to be enough students graduating to fill the openings, nor will many of these students have the experience and knowledge needed.

What does this mean for your benefit plans?

“The legislation will contuine to permit age-based distinctions under bona fide group or employee insurance plans, including those that are self-funded by employers or provided by a third party. As is the case in other jurisdictions, age-based distinctions can be made only under insurance-based benefit plans. Employers contuine to have discretion regarding the provision of benefits.”

In other words, the employers will contuine to have a choice regarding termination age for their insurance plans.

How is Pacific Blue Cross addressing this change?

Like the government, we are leaving the question of termination age to the employer’s discretion. For new groups, our new standard termination age for active members is 85 years old for our extended health care and dental plans, unless the employer asks for a different termination age. This is not a retroactive change to existing groups. It only affects new groups with an effective date of January 2008 or thereafter.

Is the impact different for life and disability plans?

How the abolishment of retirement age affects life and disability plans is a major topic of discussion for insurers and employers. The questions revolve around the need to provide coverage for people working past age 65 years in a way that is responsive yet affordable.

For life plans, BC life currently uses the standard termination age of 70 years, with benefits reducing by 50% at age 65. For groups with more than 25 employees, we can offer reduced amounts of life insurance beyond age 70.

For short term disability plans, our standard termination age is 65. As there is limited liability with short term disability plans as compared to long term disability plans (the maximum benefit period for STD is one year or less) we are often able to extend the termination age for STD to 70, or for groups with more than 25 employees, to retirement.

Like the other disability insurers in our province, BC life will contuine using the termination age of 65 for long term disability plans.

Next Steps

Above all, the change in legislation alludes to a larger discussion for employers about how to support older workers in the workplace. At present, 6% of retirees continue working after age 65. To support those who do, plan sponsors should consider the following:

• Employers who offer post-65 benefits are likely to experience higher benefit costs as medical needs increase with age. The increase in cost shoud be weighed against the benefit of having experienced and knowledgeable workers on hand.
• Those employers who decide to change or reduce benefit plans for employees who work beyond 65 years should tread carefully. Employers who reduce benefits substantially may run the risk that it appears as covert dismissal. It is recommended that employees be given plenty of notice regarding any changes.
• The impact of this change to employers who offer post-retirement benefits will not be felt so strongly. It will imply a change in costs from the retiree health and dental benefit plan to the employee health and dental benefit plan.

References:

1.  CBC News Online. Retiring mandatory retirement.  December 12, 2006.  www.cbc.ca/news/background/retirement /mandatory_retirement.html

2.  Ministry of Attorney General.  Ministry of Community Services.  Backgrounder: Elimination of Mandatory Retirement. April 25, 2007AG0020-000524. www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releass_2005-2009/2007AG0020-000524-Attachment1.htm

3.  CBC News Online.  Mandatory retirement to be scrapped in BC Wednesday, April 25, 2007 (6:08 PM ET www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/04/25/bc-retirement.html

FBA union members have voted in favour of labour adjustment measures and new rights that are part of a settlement to last year’s Supreme Court of Canada ruling striking down anti-labour legislation imposed by the BC Liberals in 2002.

As a result, government will introduce legislation to bring the offending law into compliance with the Court’s June 2007 decision on Bill 29, and with the terms of the agreement.

That means health care workers will go to the bargaining table in 2010 without legislative restrictions on their ability to negotiate contracting-out issues.

That’s good news for patients and the future of public health care, as health employers will now be forced to consult with workers before they make any decisions to privatize health services.

The privatization of everything from senior’s care to hospital food to the cleaning of patient rooms has been a monumental failure for patients and seniors.

Now we have a process through which employers and health unions can fully assess any future proposals to privatize services, and find ways to improve the public delivery of these services as an alternative to contracting out.

The agreement also sets out new rights and expanded options for workers affected by contracting out.  It includes $75 million in compensation and re-training funds.

Seventy million dollars of that amount will be distributed as compensation and re-training to health care workers impacted by Bill 29 in the past.

Re-training funds and expanded job security provisions for workers facing layoff will help address health care’s real sustainability crisis – a severe and growing shortage of skilled, experienced health care workers.

With this agreement, we can now work with health employers to target skills shortages in the sector and ensure that experienced workers stay in health care and are trained to fill those jobs.

The BC Liberals imposed Bill 29 – The Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act – six years ago, clearing the way for an unparalleled contracting out of health services that led to the layoff of more than 9,000 health care workers.

Health unions challenged Bill 29 all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada which last June ruled that Bill 29 provisions eliminating contracting-out protections from current and future collective agreements, and prohibited union consultation on contracting out plans, violated workers’ charter-protected right to freedom of association.

As a result of the ruling, collective bargaining has now been established as a constitutionally protected right for the first time.

The Court gave the BC government one year to deal with the repercussions of the ruling.  Government and health unions met for several months and reached agreements on the implementation of the ruling late last month.

The main elements of the Facilities Bargaining Association agreement with government include:

• $5 million to re-train workers laid off as a result of contracting out in the future;
• $70 million in compensation payments to health care workers affected by Bill 29 in the past (including $2 million for re-training)
• union consultation on future plans to contract out services or re-tender services already contracted out; an opportunity to propose alternatives to contracting out; as well as labour adjustment measures for affected workers (Bill 29 had prohibited any such language in health care collective agreements);
• maintenance of a 700 full-time equivalent cap on contracting out, negotiated in 2006, with this language now governed by the grievance and arbitration process rather than the Commercial Arbitration Act (Bill 29 prohibited restrictions on contracting out in health care collective agreements);
• removal by government of legislative restrictions on collective bargaining that are inconsistent with the agreement, and
• opportunities for workers laid off as a result of contracting out to apply for job vacancies in health authorities throughout the province.

Agreements reached with other health unions representing community health workers, health sciences professionals and registered nurses include compensation and training packages worth another $10 million.

February 26, 2008

OTTAWA – The Canadian Labour Congress says today’s budget makes one thing clear for ordinary working people trying to make ends meet in an economy that offers less:  this government is not on your side.

Calling Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s budget “unbalanced and unfair”, Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, says the federal government has its priorities all wrong.  They take away money from the jobless and create tax shelters for the rich.

“For over a decade we saw these budgets that gave away money to business and failed to bring benefits to working people.  Four days ago, Statistics Canada released a study showing that over the last ten years Canadians who work for wages are getting poorer and their jobs are less secure.  Meanwhile, the already-rich have been getting richer.  When will these budgets focus on the needs and aspirations of ordinary working families?” asked Georgetti.

According to Georgetti, even if the numbers have been balanced in today’s budget announcement, the priorities are way off.

Georgetti noted that there is no action in this budget to address further loss of good jobs in staple industries like manufacturing and forestry.  Instead, the budget gave us another tax shelter scheme that will only benefit the very affluent.  He says working parents would benefit far more from help finding child care and early learning spaces for their kids, or help paying for expensive prescription drugs, or repairs to crumbling public infrastructure, or even better job skills training more than they would from another tax shelter scheme.

“It is irresponsible for a government, whatever its political stripes, to ignore the fate of the 350,000 workers who lost good manufacturing and forestry jobs over the past five years,” says Georgetti.

One thing both manufacturers and unions, and most recently the Ontario government, have called for is a strong “Buy Canadain” policy for all government purchasing, similar to what can be found in the United States, Mexico and Europe.  Combined with bold investments in new public infrastructure, such a policy would give the economy a shot in the arm like no tax cut could ever deliver.

“Unemployed workers across the country will be angry when they realize the government intends through this budget to run away with $55 billion from the EI fund.  It is immoral to take away from the jobless.

“Government is supposed to help people, not give away all of its resources so it can’t,” says Georgetti.

The Canadian Labour Congress, the national voice of the labour movement, represents 3.2 million Canadian workers.  The CLC brings together Canada’s national and international unions along with the provincial and territorial federations of labour and 136 district labour councils.