Mountain View Seniors' Housing (MVSH) is now in "enhanced mediation" with unionized staff at its Olds and Sundre facilities, said Bruce Beattie, Mountain View County reeve and MVSH board chairman.
In his report to council at the Feb. 27 council meeting, Beattie said if the current negotiations fail to reach an agreement, the next step would be arbitration.
“We are in enhanced mediation at this point,” said Beattie. “What we had offered would be recognized as about a $500,000 addition we would have to find in the budget this year, which is about a two per cent increase.
“However the union doesn’t sound like they are going to be particularly receptive to that and we believe they may wish to go to arbitration, which would be the next step if we cannot reach an agreement at the mediation level.
“How will we meet the requirement to fund these increasing costs? We are limited in our ability to raise rates. We provide a social need in that we provide low-income housing and supportive living for people who are unable to meet those costs.”
A non-profit organization, MVSH operates lodge facilities, seniors’ self-contained apartments, and subsidized family housing in Olds, Carstairs, Sundre and Didsbury.
The board is made up of representatives from municipalities, including the Village of Cremona.
“The followup to an arbitration decision that we cannot meet in terms of our financial abilities, we will have to, as a board, decide what our next steps are going to be,” he said.
“Certainly there are questions from some of our membership on whether or not we should be in the seniors' housing business at all and whether it should be entirely privatized.”
“We are doing our best as a board to find our way through this and that’s the basis of our strategic planning.”
The lodges are being well run, he said.
“I think we are operating one of the better seniors' housing organizations in terms of providing for our residents,” he said. “We’ve seen that in both resident surveys and employee surveys and both of those have come back positive. We are audited on a regular basis by Alberta Health Services.”
Board members will be touring all four lodges over the coming weeks, he said.
