As many as 120,000 health care workers are still waiting for temporary pandemic pay top-ups of $4 an hour, promised by the B.C. government in the spring.
The government said it expects most of the payouts to be made by January 2021.
The Hospital Employees’ Union said health care workers on the front lines of the pandemic in long-term care homes and hospitals, and in health and community social services are waiting for temporary pandemic pay for straight time and overtime worked between March and July.
“We recognize that the timing of the pay distribution has, for many eligible employees, prevented them from receiving much-needed funds in time for the holiday season during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the province said in a statement.
HEU spokesman Mike Old said some of the lowest-paid workers in the health care system are going to be the last to get the pandemic pay. While for some it may be in the pipeline it’s not likely before Christmas “which is a shame,” Old said.
Old acknowledges the administrative financial framework is complex but said “at the end of the day the government should have realized this would be complicated and put the necessary resources at it.”
“I can assure them they will get the pay they are promised,” Health Minister Adrian Dix said during a COVID-19 media briefing.
He described the pandemic pay process as quite complicated. “It would have been nice for it to come sooner but it will come.”
“I totally agree with their frustration,” said Dix. “We feel that as well. But they will all get their pandemic pay.”
The delays are largely due to “administrative complexities” associated with distributing a new program to an estimated 250,000 employees working for hundreds of different employers, the province said in a statement.
To date, $211 million in temporary pandemic pay has been provided to approximately 134,000 of about 250,000 eligible employees, the province said.
“Despite the challenges of the program, it should not have taken this long for employees to receive their pay,” it said. “The province apologizes for the significant impact this delay has had for everyone affected.”
After the pandemic was declared in March and outbreaks in long-term care began to spread, the provincial health officer banned health-care workers from working in several locations.
To ensure workers stayed in one facility and to end the motivation to move to higher-paying facilities, the province levelled the pay of all health-care workers in both public and private seniors homes at a cost of more than $10 million a month.
This levelling of pay was not part of the $4 an hour pandemic top-up offered from March to July.
