The union representing striking workers at a care facility for young people in St. John’s wonders where the Youth and Child Advocate and the Minister responsible for youth are in all this.

Nine members of NAPE who work at the Lilly, which is run by Choices for Youth, have been on strike for the past three weeks. Union president Jerry Earle says they are down to one issue: wages. NAPE is willing to submit to an independent job classification review and accept the recommendations, whatever they may be, but says the employer is refusing to go that route.

Earle says the 14-unit Lilly, located on Bond Street, is not being picketed but Choices for Youth removed the residents and placed them at the Super 8 Hotel on Higgins Line.

The union says the cost of the accommodations is $1600 to $1800 per day and that the only person responsible for them after 8:00 p.m. in the evening is the hotel desk clerk.

They never should have been taken out of the Lilly in the first place, he says, because the union is picketing the corporate offices on Duckworth Street, not the Lilly.