Picket continues outside Kitchener long-term care home

Workers with Unifor Local 1106 picket outside Forest Heights Long-Term Care Home in Kitchener. (Source: Unifor Local 1106)

Frustrated workers continue to demonstrate outside a long-term care facility in Kitchener.

An informational picket has been going on outside Forest Heights Long-Term Care Home since Dec. 18.

Unifor members say they haven’t been paid properly by Extendicare, the home’s operations manager.

Workers allege payroll errors, underpayments and unpaid wage increases.

In an email to CTV News, an Extendicare spokesperson said: “A system configuration issue has resulted in a delay of a retroactive wage increase to a group of employees at Forest Heights Long-Term Care Home. All team members in our home continue to be paid and we are working on a solution to pay the retroactive wage increase as soon as we can. We have notified the employees and their union about this delay and will continue to communicate with our union partners as we work to resolve the issue. Any pay discrepancy for our teams is below the standard we hold ourselves to, and we unreservedly apologize to the affected staff for any inconvenience this has caused.”

The statement ended with a thank you to team members for their “dedication to the Forest Heights community.”