Warning message

Please note that this page is from our archives. There may be more up-to-date content about this topic on our website. Use our search engine to find out.

HAMILTON – Hospital workers at Hamilton Health Sciences will hold lunch-time pickets tomorrow, Thursday, May 16th from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. to protest contracting out and the hospital’s failure to enter into a fair collective agreement. “We’re tired of not having a contract and we’re fighting for our jobs,” says Mike Walters, president of Local 4800 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), representing 4,000 trades, maintenance and service workers, including clerical, registered practical nurses, health care aides and other workers at the Chedoke, Henderson, General and McMaster sites of Hamilton Health Sciences.

Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) management refuses to follow a pattern set by central negotiations between CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) and the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) covering most hospital workers in the province. “They’re choosing instead to push for an inferior contract for Hamilton hospital workers,” says CUPE National Representative Tom Baker. “They won’t follow the central agreement because the job security provisions in that contract would prevent the hospital from contracting out our members’ work.” HHS is trying to replace housekeeping staff with for-profit corporation Sodexho, a transnational corporation paying inferior wages.

Who?
Hamilton Hospital Workers
CUPE Local 4800

What?
Lunch-time pickets against contracting-out and
fighting for a fair collective agreement

When?
Thursday, May 16, 11:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Where?
Hamilton Health Sciences
Main picket at McMaster Site
1200 Main Street
Hamilton, Ontario

-30-

For further information, please contact:

Mike Walters, President, L. 4800
905-385-4555 (o) - 905-308-6997 (c)
Ron Poynter, HH Chair, Local 4800
905-385-4555
Tom Baker, CUPE National Rep.
905-630-1107 (c) - 519-797-2420 (h)
Robert Lamoureux, Communications
416-292-3999