B.C. hospital housekeepers, food-service workers being brought back under public sector
Posted August 30, 2021 2:29 pm.
Last Updated September 5, 2021 12:01 am.
SURREY (NEWS 1130) — Health Minister Adrian Dix says B.C. is bringing back thousands of workers in acute care facilities previously contracted out to private companies into the public sector. Dix says it will lead to improved wages, better working conditions, and job security for workers.
Catalina Samson works as a dietary aide at Vancouver General and says today is huge after she and many others lost wages and benefits in the privatization.
“In 2004, I went from earning $18.10 an hour with benefits and pension, to $10.15 an hour. I lost all my benefits, nothing, no sick time, no vacation, nothing at all,” Samson said.
She says she does the same job, but the work load has only become heavier because the turnover is so high. She says that low pay and no benefits offer few incentives for good workers to remain in the sector.
Health Minister Adrian Dix says most private contracts slated to end by March of 2022.
“These are significant changes” he says re: “decades of injustice” involving many @HospEmpUnion workers who lost benefits when their unionized jobs were contracted out.#bcpoli @NEWS1130
— Marcella Bernardo (@MBernardoNews) August 30, 2021
The NDP promised to make the change after the Liberals privatized many of the services under leader Gordon Campbell nearly 20 years ago. Efforts to repeal the new two existing pieces of legislation began in 2019 under Bill 47, the Health Sector Statues Repeal Act.
