About 1,200 BC health-care workers to be laid off in coming months: union
Posted March 2, 2015 4:41 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
BURNABY (NEWS1130) – The union representing health-care workers in British Columbia says nearly 1,200 workers in the Vancouver area will be getting pink slips in the coming months.
The Health Employees’ Union says the Ahmon Group has informed more than 240 care aides, nurses, cleaners and dietary workers that it will contract out services at a facility in Surrey, starting June 1.
The union also says a US company known as Aramark has lost its contract with Vancouver Coastal Health hospitals and extended care facilities and will lay off 935 staff between Aug. 9 and Sept. 22.
The union has negotiated three successive collective agreements with Aramark, one deal with the Ahmon Group, and doesn’t know if the workers will be hired back by the new contractors.
Union leaders are blaming “contracting out,” “contract flipping” and the sale of businesses for the layoffs, and they’re calling for better protection of workers in the form of stronger successorship language.
They say the BC Liberals excluded public employers and publicly subsidized private employers from such language in 2002 and 2003.
