CUPE has filed charges with the Ontario Labour Board following interference by management in a union drive at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie.
The charges were filed after hospital security staff placed a CUPE organizer under “arrest”.
Four CUPE organizers were leafleting at the staff parking lot early in the morning of February 18 when they were accosted by several security guards and threatened with trespassing charges.
“This is nothing but an intimation tactic by the hospital,” says Michael Hurley, president of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions. “Our organizers have taken great pains to ensure our material is only being distributed to staff and not to patients and family. The hospital is clearly at fault here.”
CUPE is running an organizing drive to sign up office and clerical workers at the hospital. RVH has continually interfered with workers’ rights to information, removing bulletins and chasing CUPE organizers off the property.