Hey boss, show us the money!

HEU community social services workers frustrated with employers' delays in paying negotiated raises After enduring months of community social services employers' excuses for failing to implement negotiated wage increases, the lowest-paid workers in health care are hitting the bricks again to publicize the injustice. HEU community social services care-providers will stage an information walk-about Wednesday, January 5 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in front of the offices of the Public Sector Employers' Council because they still haven't received wage and other monetary increases from their collective agreement reached last May. Employers have yet to implement a wage increase retroactive to April, 1998, and a wage increase, certain RRSP contributions and other benefit improvements that were due Oct. 1, 1999. "The situation is completely unacceptable," says HEU secretary-business manager Chris Allnutt. "This lengthy delay is a slap in the face to community social services membersóthe lowest paid workers in health care - who sustained 14 months of negotiations and 12 weeks of unprecedented, province-wide job action in order to achieve some fairness and respect in a chronically undervalued sector." HEU filed a complaint with the Labour Relations Board late last month over the delays after the Community Social Services Employers' Association refused to consider union proposals that could have seen the increases implemented several months ago. The union suggested that delinquent employers establish lines of credit or that CSSEA ask the government for funding advances to agencies so that workers would not have to bear the burden of employersí failures to meet their obligations. HEU represents more than 1,100 community social services care-providers — the majority in Victoria — who work in adult day programs and in group homes with developmentally disabled adults.