Unions speak out about shortfalls of Saskatchewan’s pandemic plans

Unions are speaking out about those forgotten in the Government of Saskatchewan’s pandemic planning.

Custodians in Saskatchewan schools have a big job this fall, and seemingly no additional hands to do it.

On a normal day, custodial staff at most schools are concerned with tasks like washing floors, cleaning main gathering areas and maybe some maintenance work on the side.

The majority of their work is cleaning, and that work has increased for the upcoming school year as a result of COVID-19.

What hasn’t increased is the number of custodial staff that will be in the halls this year.

“There is a great worry as to how they are going to get the work done with no additional staff,” said Judy Henley, president of CUPE Saskatchewan.

“Cleaning has become, and rightly so, a priority, especially common-touch places. But the square footage of the school doesn’t change and (the custodians’) workload doesn’t change from before.”

Custodians are facing greater workloads and stricter sanitization requirements in schools this fall. Henley said the process will take more time, so what is going to change?

“I think everybody worries as to being in contact with somebody that does have COVID so you always have those fears if there’s not proper safety precautions in place,” she said.

Henley feels these concerns are not being properly addressed in the province’s latest back-to-school plan. Schools are not expected to receive any increase in their budgets to account for greater cleaning demands and increased custodial staffing needs for the 2020-21 school year.

“The idea of Saskatchewan’s Safe Schools Plan is … inaccurate. It’s not safe and, to me, it’s not even a plan,” Henley said.

But Henley was not surprised — rather, disappointed — when the province unveiled its plan earlier this week.

“They didn’t have any input from front-line workers,” Henley said.

Cleaning reduced in Prairie South School Division

In the Prairie South School Division, cleaning hours are even being reduced by more than 20 hours a day in six Moose Jaw schools.

Henley said each school will see a reduction of about five hours a day in cleaning at schools like A.E. Peacock Collegiate, a comprehensive Moose Jaw high school with more than 700 students.

Henley said she doesn’t understand the cut in budget when the size of the school has not changed and there has been no reduction in enrolment.

Custodians for the school division are concerned about lost hours and, as a result, lost wages.

“They’re taking eight-hour shifts and reducing them down,” Henley said. “You take two hours a day, for example … that’s 10 hours a week. That’s a substantial loss of income.”

She added the staffing contract for custodial staff has remained the same for the past 20 years at Peacock.

“Why cut now?” Henley asked.

More work, fewer hands

The strict guidelines implemented for cleaning and sanitization processes in schools means custodians will see a significantly increased workload this fall, especially without the support of greater staffing numbers.

That responsibility is already weighing on the minds of cleaning staff.

“(There are) the stresses of worrying how they’re going to do their job properly because these workers care about the children as well and their co-workers and teachers,” Henley said. “It’s one big happy family in the workplace and just the thoughts of not being able to do your job properly could actually put somebody at risk.

“Health and safety is extremely important, no matter if you’re a student, a teacher or a frontline worker.”

Henley said CUPE is trying to step in by raising public awareness about the major increase in work and the budget cuts in custodial hours in the Prairie South School Division.

“We’re not the employer and we’re not the government,” she said. “We don’t provide the funding but what we can do is create awareness.

“This isn’t fear-mongering, this is truth to power. This is not the time to do any cutting.”

The presence of COVID-19, Henley said, should be the main source of pressure on the government to re-evaluate the importance it has placed on cleaning in schools.

“I’m not using COVID as an excuse; it’s a reality,” she said. “COVID is there and it’s alive and well. We’ve seen numbers climb and we’ve seen them go down. And my fear is once you put the exposure of all the students there without the precautions we need, who knows what’s going to happen?”

Henley said some school divisions are taking it upon themselves to try and find places they can increase cleaning staff to alleviate the demand on current custodians this fall.

“It’s extremely important the government and the employer, the divisions, really take into consideration the health and safety of not only the workers, the teachers (and) the children but our community, because when the children leave, they’re going back into the community,” Henley said.

Long-term care homes seeing loss of housekeeping staff

A 20-bed long-term care home in the central-west health zone went four days straight without any housekeeping staff last week, SEIU-West shared on Twitter.

The central-west zone was recently created to assist in identifying the locations of COVID-19 cases in the province.

SEIU-West president Barbara Cape said the central-west zone is not unique.

“I wish I could say that it’s not normal … but it’s becoming part of our new normal,” Cape said.

Workers in Rosetown, Central Butte and Swift Current, among others, have been reporting similar concerns, Cape said.

SEIU-West represents many frontline workers in hospitals and long-term care homes across the province.

“We’re also getting reports of shortages of frontline care aides and licensed practical nurses,” she said.

Cape said this is not a one-off problem.

“It is becoming more endemic within our health-care system but rural facilities are especially hard hit when this happens,” she said.

If housekeeping staff or environmental service workers are not present in a long-term care home, Cape said it will fall on other staff — such as nurses and aides — to take on extra duties and try to prevent things from falling through the cracks.

That includes intensive cleaning of high-touch areas.

“It’s a little hard to do personal care on a resident and then push a broom down a few hallways because you’re giving up time to do that direct care with the resident in order to do something where we … should have staff able to do this work,” Cape said. “But there was no one.”

Cape said she’s impressed with how the public has opened its eyes during the pandemic to the issues faced by frontline workers in long-term care homes every day.

“I think when we look at managing the curve or the infection rate of a pandemic, frontline environmental service workers are key to maintaining infection control and maintaining the infection rate in a facility,” she said.

“When you don’t have anybody, it is a cause for alarm.”