HALIFAX—Workers at Halifax’s only sexual assault resource centre want to unionize to advocate for more resources and better working conditions to support the growing demand for their services.

Avalon Sexual Assault Centre staff announced their intent to unionize on May 1, about two months after quietly starting the union certification process.

Adrienne Buckland, one of Avalon’s counsellors, said it officially started on March 8 when staff members signed union cards and applied to the Nova Scotia Labour Board.

“We’re essentially unionizing because we want to have a stronger voice on many levels, both inside our organization as well as in our community,” Buckland said in an interview.

Demand for Avalon’s services — which include counselling and an array of other supports for victims and survivors of sexualized violence — has been steadily rising for several years and the centre has struggled to keep pace.

In April, Avalon started turning down new requests for sexual-assault trauma therapy because the wait had grown to more than two years. Executive director Jackie Stevens told the Star that it was a symptom of chronic underfunding.

Buckland highlighted the wait-list closure as an example of the challenges staff are facing and a reason for assembling a union. She said the inability to keep up with the demand for services “isn’t ideal” for staff or clients.

“We’re working so hard just to keep up,” she said.

“We feel it’s a really pivotal time right now with the #metoo movement happening, to kind of stand up and say ‘no more to feeling undervalued, no more to being extremely under-resourced.’”

Buckland believes a union will be able to advocate more effectively to government for long-term investment and for a “diversification of services” across the province.

The Nova Scotia government developed its first sexualized violence strategy in 2015 and subsequently increased grant funding to the three sexual assault resource centres across the province. That allowed Avalon to double its counselling team, but still the trauma therapy program was overwhelmed by 2019.

“It’s not just money,” said Buckland.

She said survivors and victims of sexualized violence need access to legal support — something Avalon cannot provide — and yet Buckland said staff often feel that responsibility is “downloaded” onto them.

“We actually can’t even keep up with the current demand within the mandate of the services that we provide.”

Buckland’s colleague, Dee Dooley, said she believes unionization will create solidarity with other organizations and ensure that clients have access to the services they really need.

Avalon staff want “a broader and more solidified presence to address the things that impact the way we’re able to work and offer the community supports and services that we’re trying to offer,” said Dooley, a community educator at the centre.

In an email, Stevens told the Star that Avalon “endorses staff member’s decision to vote for union certification.”

“We appreciate their dedication and commitment to advancing the mission of Avalon Centre in supporting survivors of sexualized violence and abuse. During the process, Avalon Centre is endeavouring to meet our obligations under the act. We will continue to work together with staff towards our common goals.”

Buckland said the labour board is working with Avalon staff to determine which employees qualify for membership in the union. There are 16 staff at the centre — excluding Stevens, who as executive director would not be a union member — and Buckland said 15 voted on the union question in March. Avalon also contracts more than a dozen sexual assault nurse examiners, some of whom also voted.

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The votes won’t be counted until the labour board makes the membership determination.

Through Department of Labour spokesperson Shannon Kerr, the labour board confirmed in an emailed statement that it is involved in the unionization process with Avalon. It wouldn’t share any other details of Avalon’s certification, saying that “information before the board is confidential to the parties of the matter.”

Correction - May 3, 2019: This article was updated from a previous version that misstated the union application process.

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