Edmonton care home cuts hours for FT workers

Last week, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees published an update on their website, indicating that a care home in Edmonton is cutting hours for workers.

AUPE, which represents around 200 workers at Devonshire Care Centre in Edmonton, said the employer has reduced working hours for all the full-time health care aides.

The 132-space care centre is owned by Park Place Senior Living and operated by the Vancouver-based Devonshire Care Centre Partnership.

According to AUPE, these workers will have their hours cut from full-time to 0.7 time.

In other words, for every hour they were working before, they will be scheduled for just 42 minutes. To put it another way, a 40-hour work week is reduced to just shy of 27 hours.

The current collective agreement indicates that health care aides make between $20.42 and $25.59 an hour. That works out to between $265.46 and $332.67 in lost wages each week.

The AUPE also claimed that because these workers will drop down to part-time hours, they will lose health benefits that are reserved for only full-time workers.

This change, according to AUPE, will also mean that residents at Devonshire Care Centre will have less consistency in the health care aides providing them care.

After all, health care aides won’t be able to visit as many clients in 27 hours that they were able to visit in 40 hours.

Last week, the workers held an information picket to raise awareness toward what the employer is doing. AUPE provided The Alberta Worker with the following photos from the picket.