On October 3 frontline workers at Hastings Prince Edward Public Health voted 81% in favour of ratifying the tentative agreement with the board of health.
“We look forward to the employer successfully ratifying our new three-year collective agreement tomorrow and expect to return to work on Wednesday,” said Kim Craig, a public health inspector and the president of CUPE 3314, in a statement. “The resolve of my coworkers withdrawing their labour for 10 days – along with the solidarity of our Ontario Nurses’ Association colleagues and the support of our communities’ residents – has resulted in reasonable and necessary wage increases plus some modest improvements to benefits.”
The new collective agreement between CUPE 3314 and Hastings Prince Edward Public Health includes a 3% wage increase this year, retroactive to January 1, and 2.5% increases in each of the next two years.
“My coworkers and I will continue fighting, alongside nurses,” Craig vowed, “to stop the Doug Ford Conservatives’ ongoing public health funding cuts and needless forced mergers.”