HEU’s new recruits don’t work in IH region

None of the 4,000 dietary workers and cleaners who are set to rejoin the Hospital Employees’ Union next year have job sites in the Interior Health region.

B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix announced Monday that the province this fall intends to start the process of repatriating 21 different contracts under which workers provide cleaning and food services to health facilities.

The move comes 19 years after the former BC Liberal government privatized those services and in the process yanked the workers out of the HEU. In many cases, those same workers were hired back into the same jobs but at lower rates of pay.

Putting them back into the HEU under a master contract is meant to reverse that move by improving wages and working conditions, plus reduce staff turnover.

“The repatriation of housekeeping and food services contracts is good for patients, for workers, for the health-care team and for recruiting future healthcare workers,” said Dix in a press release.

“It treats those who do the essential and life-saving work of keeping our hospitals and facilities clean and ensuring the nutrition of our patients with fairness and dignity. There is always more to do, but I am very proud of these decisions and the value they place on public health care.”

The 21 contracts that are being repatriated are limited to facilities on the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.

In the IH region, cleaners and dietary workers are employed under an HEU master contract. The top pay rate for cleaners is $20.97 per hour.