North Sask Laundry picket shows growing conflict

Employees at North Sask Laundry are speaking up about deepening conflict between staff and management.

About 30 of its staff members aired their concerns at a second lunchtime picket outside MLA Victoria Jurgens’ constituency office on Friday.

Over 75 people will be out of the job next year when their jobs cleaning linens for four health regions are privatized, done by K-Bro.

All of the province’s health care laundry will be done at a centralized facility in Regina once the building’s construction is finished. Currently the predicted finish date is fall of 2015.

The issues with management interactions aren’t new, but escalated after staff on a lunch break on Wednesday marched on the sidewalk outside their workplace.

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“Management called [hospital] security… There’s not supposed to be picketers on the property apparently. And we thought management would have been on our side,” said CUPE Local 3736 president Anita Labossiere.

“It really feels like they don’t care about what’s going on with us, the fact that they called security instead of management coming outside and letting us know ‘you can’t be here.’”

Employee Trina Bzowey described a sense of alienation from higher-ups who are “playing games.”

“My biggest problem is the harassment but it’s not with others, it’s with the management. We’ve had a lot to deal with and it’s like they’re pushing us out.”

As an 18-year employee, she said ever since the announcement about K-Bro taking over their services last year “we’ve got more [management] in there, in the office than we’ve ever had.”

She said there are many unanswered questions surrounding when staff will be laid off and transitional offers like severance pay and job training.

“I’ve got a family and a house and bills so I don’t know if I can afford to go back to school. I don’t know anything right now, and that’s the tough part.”

NDP members, including Cumberland House MLA Doyle Vermette, and members of other unions joined the Friday protest.

“That’s really amazing that they’re doing it,” Bzowey said of the support. “It means a lot that there is people coming out here to walk with us.”

Spirits were high as the crowd chanted and cars honked driving by the busy intersection at 15th Street West and Sixth Avenue.

However, Bzowey held back tears as she explained the need for answers from North Sask; not just for her but for her husband, 14-year-old daughter, and 9-year-old son.

“They don’t know, we don’t know if we can stay in our house out of town or if we will have to move. They don’t know. Everything is up in the air.”

She said the lack of clarity on how pensions will work and the transitions have made it difficult to make choices on her next step.

“Is it worth staying [with North Sask] if they’re not going to pay me severance or help me out?”

Bzowey was certified as a medical stenographer over a decade ago, but that training is now “obsolete.”

She said her reason for picketing is simple: “We’d like the thing that they promised us the day they told us we were gonna be closing.”

While Sask. Party MLA Jurgens and Prince Albert-Carlton MLA Darryl Hickie weren’t present on Friday, Lebossiere said they had a meeting booked with union representatives on Saturday.

“He [Hickie] did seem very disturbed at what is going on” and wants it resolved, Lebossiere said.

Management at North Sask Laundry, including general manager Wanda Andreen, has not responded to multiple calls and reception declined to comment earlier this week.

claskowski@panow.com

On Twitter: @chelsealaskowsk