Canada : Youth-crisis counsellors set to walk off the job Tuesday
MacDonald Youth Services is bracing for a strike on Tuesday that will greatly affect the assistance it is able to provide.
Twenty-six workers, members of the Manitoba Government and General Employees
Union, have been without a contract for more than two years. They work in the non-profit agency's youth crisis unit.
MacDonald Youth Services has not received an increase in provincial government funding since 2013, so it does not have the money to increase staff pay, CEO Erma Chapman says. The union has demanded annual wage increases of two per cent for four years.
Chapman said the agency is sympathetic to the workers' demands, but its hands are tied.
On Friday, the agency released details of an essential services agreement with the union that will see its assistance to at-risk kids greatly reduced during a work stoppage.
Telephone intake services previously available around the clock will be available only between 8 a.m. and midnight. And only one intake clinician — providing telephone counselling — will be working at any one time.
Generally, two-thirds of requests for help are resolved on the phone, the agency says. Crises not resolved over the phone are referred to a mobile crisis team. Non-crisis calls are referred to other agencies.
The mobile crisis team will provide significantly reduced services during the work stoppage. One team will operate from 4 p.m. to midnight. Previously, three mobile crisis teams were available 20 hours per day.
Other youth crisis stabilization services will also be curbed or eliminated during the strike. However, referrals to the Home Based Crisis Intervention Services provided by the the Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre will continue.
— staff