The premier’s latest State of the Province address is getting a thumbs down from New Brunswick’s largest union.
CUPE New Brunswick held a news conference Friday morning to share their thoughts on what they heard the night before.
President Stephen Drost said the premier’s speech did not address many of the key issues facing New Brunswickers.
“We have a significant crisis and instead of trying to address those in-house … his whole goal is to continue to try and privatize health care,” said Drost.
“We have many, many issues that are happening in our education sector. Again, he failed to come up with any concrete plans on how he’s going to address some of those particular issues.”
Drost was joined by CUPE leaders representing a wide range of public sector employees, including hospital employees, nursing home workers, school bus drivers, school custodians, and social workers.
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Norma Robinson, president of the New Brunswick Council of Hospital Unions, said the premier’s remarks sounded more like a campaign speech rather than a true look at the state of New Brunswick.
“The premier came across as being very bubbly, very upbeat, like everything is wonderful. That is not the reality in the world that we work in,” said Robinson.
Robinson said there continue to be ongoing issues with recruiting and retaining workers across the healthcare sector — and not just when it comes to physicians and nurses.
“Without those cleaning and preparing meals, sterilizing equipment, dispatching ambulances, keeping the buildings heated, health care would not be sustainable,” she said.
“Each and every one of those I represent goes to work where they find themself working every day short, being pulled in multiple directions to do work of two or three other classifications, but no one notices.”
Sharon Teare, president of the New Brunswick Council of Nursing Home Unions, said she was discouraged to hear no mention of the crisis currently facing the province’s nursing homes.
Teare said they are concerned that patients in hospitals are being fast-tracked to nursing homes to free up much-needed space.
“These nursing homes that have empty beds are empty because of staffing shortages. We are only shifting the problem to long-term care without addressing the staffing crisis,” said Teare.
“Fast-tracking these hospital residents into nursing homes is compromising their quality of care. It’s preventing them from achieving and receiving a life with dignity and respect.”
Teare went on to say that allowing hospital patients to “jump the queue” is disrespecting those in need of a nursing home bed who are waiting in their own homes.
Iris Lloyd, president of the New Brunswick Council of School District Unions, raised concerns about a high number of school buses not running daily.
Lloyd said it has nothing to do with a lack of school buses, but rather a shortage of individuals to drive them from one place to another.
“We are having a major problem recruiting and retaining school bus drivers,” said Lloyd. “Until this premier offers a real wage incentive for school bus driving, we will not be able to recruit any drivers.”
Meanwhile, Lloyd said a shortage of custodians means some districts are going more than three days without a replacement to clean those schools.
The union is calling on the government to “invest in the well-being of those contributing to the province’s prosperity: working people.”
