We Praise Them For Their Work, So Why Not Pay Them What They Deserve
MONCTON – Sylvie Bertrand has been in the care sector for 45 years, but she doesn’t have a paid sick day and still makes less than $15 per hour.
“I got sick for a little sore throat and I was tested negative [for COVID-19]. I wasn’t allowed to go to work, and we don’t have a sick day pay…That’s really frustrating,” she said.
Bertrand, now in her 60s, is a safety assistant and a home caregiver. She moves between two to three homes a day, serving up to eight homes a week around Moncton and Dieppe.
When her shift begins at the home of a client, she works alone, even if her client needs help moving around. In a hospital or a nursing home setting, two people would usually be required to do the same job, she said.
“I love my job, and my clients and the seniors. It’s a need, a need, a need,” she said.
She has some benefits from her employer, Bayshore HealthCare. But she also has to take out an expensive insurance plan for her car because she sometimes has to take clients places, she said.
She says she’s proud to work for the company – the management has been great, but they haven’t been able to increase wages very much.
With Covid-19, additional safety precautions mean Bertrand’s clients won’t be able to see her smile behind her mask. She’s not afraid of contracting the virus from them, though, because they’re supposed to stay in. It’s when she goes out to get groceries for them, or for herself, that she’s worried she could carry the virus with her.
“After my day, I get home, get changed, shower and go for my own groceries. But in between my three clients, if I have to do groceries, the risk is really high,” she said.
Covid-19 has also impacted the way Laurie Anderson works. She’s a human service counselor who works at a publicly-funded adult residential group home in Woodstock.
Besides additional cleaning procedures, Anderson and her colleagues also got personal protective equipment (PPE) from the provincial government’s Social Development department.
But the biggest difference is that all eight residents now have to stay home all the time. The changes in routines and restriction of activities that were formerly allowed could be difficult for residents to accept.
Things like going window shopping, or getting coffee with their social worker, are much cherished by the residents.
“So to have to have to tell them, ‘sorry, there’s no more outings’ is very upsetting to them,” she said. Some can have violent outbursts. That’s added extra stress to caregivers.
The facility has also lost some of its casual staff during the pandemic because the risk of being exposed to the virus is higher if they go to work, plus there’s the added stress. That means full-time staff have had to work double shifts or longer shifts.
Anderson usually works 10 and a half-hour night shifts alone. The residents are usually asleep by the time she arrives, but she’s there if any of them wake up and need someone. She’s also there to help them with their personal care the next morning.
She’s been caring for adults with mental health and intellectual disabilities for 25 years. She has family members who are developmentally challenged, so the cause is close to her heart.
“Originally, I started as a summer student and it grabbed at my heart,” she said, audibly choking up, adding that many of her clients over the years don’t have families.
“To bring them into a home setting, help them adjust, to see them change and flourish and grow, it captured my heart,” she said. “They take pleasure in the simple little things, which helps keep you grounded and humble. It shows you humility. It just makes you appreciate things in life when you see the struggles that they go through and the challenges they face, and when they can get over those hurdles, you celebrate and you cheer with them.”
Essential Work, Low Wages
Covid-19 has highlighted society’s reliance on essential workers like caregivers.
“The people that rely on them can’t go without them…and yet, their wages are so low, that the actual money that the federal government was providing to help workers who lost their jobs was about the same as the amount of money they earn taking care of vulnerable people in our society,” said Johanne Perron, the executive director of the New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity.
Aldéa Landry, a spokesperson for a citizen group that sent a letter to the premier pushing for pay equity for caregivers, said the crisis has highlighted the plight of these workers.
“The Covid-19 crisis made a lot of people realize that there’s a lot of things we took for granted. And one of those things was how much the well-being of the most vulnerable depends on workers,” she said. “There’s been a call for change for a long time and the crisis that we’re presently facing has just made it more urgent and more pressing.”
On Monday, the Coalition and 41 other civil-society organizations published a joint declaration calling on the provincial government to make significant investments in the wages of the more than 12,000 caregivers during the pandemic and beyond.
They called for wages that reflect pay equity, and the level of responsibilities, skills, effort, and working conditions inherent to the jobs. They also called for guaranteed paid sick leave, more stable schedules, better staffing ratios, and better access to PPE during the pandemic.
The signatories include the New Brunswick Federation of Labour, The Association of Francophone Municipalities in New Brunswick, various unions and others.
Long-Running Issues
Low pay and difficult working conditions are not new for Anderson and Bertrand.
Anderson’s a member of a union, which has been able to negotiate paid sick days and a small pension, something she’s grateful for. But even so, at this point in her career, she makes less than $17. That’s how much her sons made in their first year of working on a farm and harvesting Christmas trees, she said.
“The pay is definitely undervalued for what we do,” she said. “And if we have been seen now as essential services, I think definitely the pay should go with it and it definitely would help with the retention problem.”
They say because of the low pay, long hours and lack of paid sick days, many people aren’t enticed to the profession unless they have a strong passion for it. Yet, as New Brunswick’s population ages, caregiving is an even more needed service.
“If somebody wants to go in this field, go because it’s a need and it’s a vocation, too. If you want to go for the salary, don’t go,” Bertrand said.
Perron says the caregiving sector has been the Coalition’s focus for at least the past decade because “it’s a clear example of how work that’s mostly done by women is undervalued and underpaid.”
“It has to be fixed in the long term, not just during the Covid-19 crisis.”
In addition to nursing homes, the caregiving sector also includes special care homes, community residences, home support services, transition houses for women fleeing violence, family support services, and ADAPT centres. The Coalition is currently leading a project to evaluate jobs in the latter six services with employees and employers.
Perron said between 75 percent and 99 percent of workers in those services are women, and the pay is generally between $14 and $16 per hour, that’s after slight increases over the years.
In 2012, the coalition commissioned a study on pay equity that found $20 per hour would have been considered equal pay for work of equal value at the time. A new study is being commissioned and Perron expects that figure to be higher.
While benefits and working conditions vary from one agency to another, the current minimum work standards don’t require paid sick leave for a lot of the workers. Some agencies also don’t have a pension plan. That’s something the coalition wants to see change, too.
Perron said most of these agencies are privately run, some non-profits and others for profit. The Coalition has been pushing for pay equity legislation to cover the private sector.
On the other hand, the Coalition is also pushing for the government to invest in the wages of caregivers. She said as the regulator of the sector, and funder of parts or all of their essential services, the government should do more.
Bertrand and Anderson said more government investment in the sector would not only attract workers but also help with the upkeep of homes and fund activities of residents.
While both employers and the government have responsibilities to improve the situation, Perron said, “if there’s not enough funding, it’s difficult for companies to pay fair wages.”
“I’ve talked to a lot of employers that obviously want to improve the conditions of their employees, but feel strapped for money. Some of them are very small companies, family-owned.”
When asked what has been the biggest challenge to making change happen through legislation, Perron said it’s “a question of priorities.”
“We’re hoping that priorities will be more on the side of equality and fairness,” she said. “If we really focus on having the most vulnerable people of our society cared for properly, I think everything else will go better.”
Huddle reached out to the provincial government, but didn’t receive an answer as of publishing time.
For now, Perron hopes the provincial government can take advantage of a federal program announced in April that would top up wages of essential workers who earn less than $2,500 a month.