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SYDNEY, NS– Nursing home workers at MacGillivray Nursing Home in Sydney, Nova Scotia, have voted to accept a new three-year contract.

CUPE National Representative John Evans said, “The members of Local 1562 voted 97 per cent in favour of a 31-month collective agreement at the end of which support staff in the facility will be paid wages equal to their counterparts in Nova Scotia hospitals.” 

CUPE long-term care coordinator Kelly Murray, the union’s chief negotiator for the economic package that will flow to 3,500 long-term care workers in 36 facilities across the province, said the agreement means they can now ”put the wage parity issue to bed for this sector.”
 


Issues important to nursing home workers had to be sacrificed during this round of bargaining on the march to parity. In the next round – which is only a little over a year away – CUPE can focus on these important issues and not be distracted by the need to secure equal pay for work of equal value.”

In the coming weeks all of the other CUPE locals will be asked to vote on the same tentative agreement. Murray says he and his provincial bargaining committee will be recommending acceptance of the settlement.

These workers have been without a collective agreement for 19 months. To promote stability in the sector, CUPE and the employers have a responsibility to bring this long round of bargaining to a conclusion.”
  

For more information, contact:

John Evans
CUPE National Representative
(902) 317-1142

Kelly Murray
Long-term care coordinator

(902) 455-4180

John McCracken
CUPE Atlantic Communications Representative
(902) 455-4180