B.C. hiring back hospital cleaners, food services workers almost 2 decades after privatization push
Almost two decades after the B.C. government laid off thousands of hospital support workers, pushing them into lower-paid corporate contracts, the province is repatriating their positions.
Health Minister Adrian Dix announced Monday that the NDP is beginning a phased process of bringing approximately 4,000 hospital cleaners and food services staff back under the government's employment.
"The province and the health authorities will serve notice under the terms of 21 commercial service contracts to start to repatriate housekeeping and food service contracts," Dix said. "This move will improve wages, working conditions, job security and stability."
The majority of the transition will take place before the end of March 2022, the minister said.
The hospital support workers were forced from their positions after former premier Gordon Campbell's BC Liberal government passed Bill 29, the Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act, back in January 2002.
The legislation allowed B.C. to break its union agreements and contract out the workers' jobs to the private sector.
Meena Brisard, secretary business manager of the Hospital Employees' Union, described the impact on the affected employees as "devastating."
"Their work was contracted out to corporations who rehired many of these workers at half the wages with no pension and very few benefits," Brisard said. "Today these workers still earn less than they did 20 years ago."
The overwhelming majority of the economic impact was shouldered by women, who made up more than four in five of the affected workers, according to Brisard. She said people of colour were disproportionately impacted as well.
CTV News reached out to the BC Liberals, but the party declined to comment on the announcement.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
From essential goods to common stocking stuffers, Trudeau offering Canadians temporary tax relief
Canadians will soon receive a temporary tax break on several items, along with a one-time $250 rebate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Thursday.
She thought her children just had a cough or fever. A mother shares sons' experience with walking pneumonia
A mother shares with CTVNews.ca her family's health scare as medical experts say cases of the disease and other respiratory illnesses have surged, filling up emergency departments nationwide.
Trump chooses Pam Bondi for attorney general pick after Gaetz withdraws
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump on Thursday named Pam Bondi, the former attorney general of Florida, to be U.S. attorney general just hours after his other choice, Matt Gaetz, withdrew his name from consideration.
Putin says Russia attacked Ukraine with a new missile that he claims the West can't stop
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Thursday that Moscow has tested a new intermediate-range missile in a strike on Ukraine, and he warned that it could use the weapon against countries that have allowed Kyiv to use their missiles to strike Russia.
Here's a list of items that will be GST/HST-free over the holidays
Canadians won’t have to pay GST on a selection of items this holiday season, the prime minister vowed on Thursday.
A one-of-a-kind Royal Canadian Mint coin sells for more than $1.5M
A rare one-of-a-kind pure gold coin from the Royal Canadian Mint has sold for more than $1.5 million. The 99.99 per cent pure gold coin, named 'The Dance Screen (The Scream Too),' weighs a whopping 10 kilograms and surpassed the previous record for a coin offered at an auction in Canada.
Video shows octopus 'hanging on for dear life' during bomb cyclone off B.C. coast
Humans weren’t the only ones who struggled through the bomb cyclone that formed off the B.C. coast this week, bringing intense winds and choppy seas.
Taylor Swift's motorcade spotted along Toronto's Gardiner Expressway
Taylor Swift is officially back in Toronto for round two. The popstar princess's motorcade was seen driving along the Gardiner Expressway on Thursday afternoon, making its way to the downtown core ahead of night four of ‘The Eras Tour’ at the Rogers Centre.
Service Canada holding back 85K passports amid Canada Post mail strike
Approximately 85,000 new passports are being held back by Service Canada, which stopped mailing them out a week before the nationwide Canada Post strike.