Union wages to blame?

By Lisa Morry - lmorry@chilliwacktimes.com

The union is being blamed for some of the problems leading to the announced closure of the Chilliwack SPCA.

In December, Chilliwack SPCA staff voted to join the Canadian Union of Public Employees. That decision sealed the Chilliwack SPCA's fate, according to Juanita Stander, a member of the Community Advisory Council of the SPCA, and the local fundraising chairperson.

Last week the SPCA announced that it would close the Chilliwack and Langley shelters and expand the Abbotsford shelter, maintaining a storefront presence in Chilliwack and strengthening cruelty investigation resources.

Newly unionized Chilliwack staff were still negotiating benefits at the time of the closure announcement and have now received layoff notices, according to local president Jeff Lawson.

Union membership would probably have meant wage increases, although Lawson wouldn't speculate on what those increases might have been. Staff at the Chilliwack shelter earn $8 to $9 an hour.

"We think we could have made some improvement on that," Lawson said.

It would also have set health and safety standards and afforded staff benefits including medical and a retirement plan and a dispute resolution process, Lawson said.

Stander said those costs would have broken the shelter's budget.

"It always runs at a deficit," she said.

However, Lawson said there are only four or five employees in Chilliwack and there are 120 shelter employees in the union local. Four or five, added to 120 wouldn't make much difference, he said.

As for Community Advisory Council members, the announced closure of the Chilliwack shelter could mean they will quit and they may make that decision at a meeting they had scheduled for Wednesday to deal with other matters.

"I've made my position very clear," Stander said. "I would have a hard time fundraising here if we didn't have a shelter."

Stander said she doesn't agree with closing the Chilliwack shelter and only found out about the decision on Tuesday. She said head office should have advised Ena Vermerris, who spent $30,000 of her own money, along with community donations, to build a new cat facility at the Chilliwack shelter.

"They should have said, 'just put your ideas on hold, we've got other plans,'" Stander said.

Lawson said the SPCA's direction should serve as a warning to the rest of the province that the SPCA is moving away from animal protection. He said he doesn't think the Chilliwack and Langley shelters will be the only ones closed.

"We need to bring the SPCA's intentions to the eye of the public," he said. "This is a scary, scary move if you care about animals in the province of B.C." he said.

Lawson said the union is working on a response to the SPCA's move.