Saskatchewan NDP leader Ryan Meili wants frontline workers in the province to receive a wage top-up.
Specifically, he feels low-income essential workers who are at a significant risk during the pandemic should be receiving a “much-deserved raise” while putting in long hours and extra work in stressful circumstances.
Meili hopes the province can ensure they are not leaving federal dollars on the table that could be going to frontline workers.
“The federal government announced two weeks ago already that they have a program through which they will backfill some of those costs. In Saskatchewan, we still haven’t heard a thing,” explained Meili during his Monday morning Zoom conference.
“This is a real miss in terms of supporting those workers and making sure they are going to be okay.”
The Sask. NDP are looking at programs that have been implemented in other provinces like Ontario, BC and Quebec to top up the salaries of essential workers.
In Alberta, the government has provided an additional two dollars an hour for long-term care workers.
Meili is also calling for presumptive Workers’ Compensation Board coverage for employees who fall ill with COVID-19.
He said in order to ensure workers are being compensated fairly, there needs to be a way that anyone who gets the virus while working does not struggle to access Workers’ Compensation.
“It would be a different level from the CERB. It would be as appropriate to their WCB coverage for their employment, so it would be an appropriate level of pay and coverage,” he stated.
“We have that in place for PTSD and other things to just say we understand that if someone is working and they have COVID-19, we’re going to assume that is connected to their workplace so we can make sure they get full coverage.”
He added that this would mean a change to the legislation, another reason why he wants MLAs to return to the legislature.
