A long-term fix needed for long-term care

POLITICAL action has always been an important part of our member-driven campaigns for better health care and workers’ rights.

Right now, HEU is pressuring the BC NDP government to keep its 2020 election commitment to fix seniors’ care by restoring common standards for wages, benefits and working conditions in this sector.

The provincial government has taken significant actions to improve the lives of seniors and the workers who care for them, by delivering standardized “levelledup” wages across the sector, hiring and training more workers, and ending contract-flipping.

Recently, they’ve announced two new publicly funded long-term care facilities – one on the Island and another in Vancouver, adding more non-profit capacity in seniors’ care.

But after three years of a pandemic, the gaps in seniors’ care are growing.

And going forward, we need fundamental changes to this sector to restore common standards for working and caring conditions that had been dismantled by the BC Liberals.

For-profit operators and owners need to be held to account for the public funding they receive to deliver care. And we need to build new facilities to create more non-profit and public beds.

Make no mistake.

We will hold the government accountable for its 2020 promise.

In early April, we met with Premier David Eby to remind the government about the importance of seniors’ care.

And you’ll be hearing more about our Care Can’t Wait campaign throughout the year.

Making progress on seniors’ care is more than just ensuring our seniors receive the quality care they deserve.

It’s also about acknowledging that many workers in this sector – a group that is highly gendered and highly racialized – are not providing care on a level playing field.

They need to be treated with dignity and respect for their vital role in providing care. I encourage you to stand with seniors’ care workers and sign up for our Care Can’t Wait campaign.

Hands Off Health Care

In February 2003, HEU president Fred Muzin led a rally at the Vancouver Art Gallery to mark the first anniversary of the BC Liberals’ anti-labour legislation Bill 29, which launched the provincial government’s 16-year privatization agenda.

Twenty years later – after legal challenges all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, a change in govern- ment, and new legislation that protects workers and public services – HEU celebrates the repatriation of thousands of contracted out support services members. More than 4,000 HEU members were returned to the public sector, with immediate wage and benefit improvements, and job security.