enVision Community Living Employees See Wage Gains, Pension Top Up with New Contract

Steinbach, MB—Employees of enVision Community Living overwhelmingly ratified a two-year collective agreement providing them with wage gains and other improvements.

The employees are represented by Education, Service, and Healthcare Union, CLAC Local 306. The union has represented the employees since 2015.

The new contract provides a two percent wage increase for all direct service workers (DSWs), retroactive to January 1, 2020. Employees will also receive a pension top-up signing bonus of two percent of six months’ pensionable earnings. The agreement also includes improvements to paid sick-time accrual, bereavement provisions, and the frequency of labour-management meetings.

Negotiations for the new agreement were prolonged, extending nearly six months from November 2019 to April 2020. They were concluded with assistance from conciliation services and the Manitoba Labour Board.

“There were challenging and difficult times during negotiations,” says Allen Dearborn, an employee and member of the union bargaining committee. “But I believe the tough bargaining resulted in a positive outcome for both sides. The agreement was ratified with a near unanimous yes vote by the membership. Thank you to both CLAC and enVision for your hard work in getting this agreement done.”

The 50 DSWs and labourers employed by enVision work with adults with intellectual disabilities at Eastman Recycling and Kindale Industries.