The CUPE-led coalition of unions achieved a major breakthrough at SickKids Hospital, where workers had been deprived of the same pension as other hospital staff in Ontario.
In 2025, CUPE members at SickKids Hospital in Toronto won a major victory – one that benefited not only CUPE members, but all workers across the hospital – securing the same pension plan as other hospital staff across the province.
This had been a longstanding demand for CUPE 2816, as SickKids was one of the few Ontario hospitals with its own pension plan – and by 2024, it was the only one. Other hospital workers were part of the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP), which provided superior benefits compared to the meagre offerings of SickKids’ in-house pension plan.
The plan’s inadequacy was partly due to the hospital taking a “pension holiday” in all but two years since 1997, meaning workers were essentially the only real contributors to the plan.
Frustrated, the union knew the only way to ensure justice was to get into HOOPP, where major health care unions, including CUPE, have representation on the board.
Joining HOOPP had been on the union’s agenda for more than a decade. In conversations with CUPE 2816 leaders, hospital management had been noncommittal about joining HOOPP. CUPE began campaigning in 2019, but the pandemic brought that work to a halt.
In 2024, a resurgent CUPE campaign was supported by its allies: the Ontario Nurses Association (ONA), the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU).
As a result, all SickKids employees – more than 9,000 workers – are now part of HOOPP, including the approximately 700 workers represented by CUPE. Here we outline how this victory was achieved.
Rallies at the hospital gates
A defiant Leonora Foster (c), president of CUPE 2816, led the successful campaign at SickKids.
Foster, a patient service aide at the hospital (equivalent to a personal support worker), was an excellent spokesperson. She took a principled yet no-holds-barred approach, mincing no words as she held her employer accountable for the precarity facing her and her members in their sunset years.
Often flanked by her colleagues during media interviews, the 37-year veteran at SickKids pointed to the hypocrisy of an institution that had built a reputation for world-class care on the backs of precarious workers.
The message, delivered through emphatic speeches, chants and even dancing, played well in front of the cameras as Foster and her largely racialized, predominantly female group of co-workers made a strong case for HOOPP. The presence of labour leaders including Fred Hahn (CUPE Ontario president), Erin Ariss (ONA president), JP Hornick (OPSEU president) and Michael Hurley (OCHU-CUPE president) only added to the recurring spectacle on University Avenue.
SickKids = workers facing poverty in retirement
In 2024, the SickKids Foundation spent $47.5 million on marketing to craft its reputation and attract donations – funds that supplement provincial government support for operational expenses. The scale of that investment revealed an institution willing to spend heavily on its public image, even as the workers who keep the hospital running faced the prospect of retiring in poverty.
But CUPE 2816 ran a smart campaign: operating with a fraction of those resources, it used cost-effective social media ads, spots on subway display screens at stations near the hospital, and a large billboard space at Yonge-Dundas Square in downtown Toronto for a few weeks that summer. The message associating the “world-renowned” SickKids with “poverty” likely soured a few faces in the hospital’s marketing department.
The rallies and ad campaign worked in unison to keep the issue alive – not just among CUPE members but also for other SickKids staff. Over the course of 2024, staff throughout the hospital – unionized or not – began inquiring, “Why are we receiving an inferior plan?”
Town halls and pressure from within
Erin Ariss, president of ONA, rallies the crowd.
In the summer of 2024, hospital management was forced to confront the pension issue, holding a staff town hall in a packed auditorium. Any attempt to defuse the workers’ anger was quickly dispelled, thanks to Foster, who was first on the mic during the Q&A.
“I said to them, ‘You want to tell me that SickKids, you’re one of the world’s best hospitals, and your workers are retiring in poverty? How can you do that?’” Foster recounts. “And then I looked at one of the vice-presidents, and said, ‘You should be ashamed of yourselves.’”
The crowd broke out in applause.
Soon after, the hospital released an FAQ about the pension, attempting to wrestle control of the narrative. CUPE promptly responded with a flyer rebutting the hospital’s claims and reiterating its position: the inadequacy of retirement payments was a choice – because nothing was preventing SickKids from improving its plan.
“We were freezing while handing out flyers”
Christmas card from SickKids staff to their employer.
Foster and the CUPE 2816 executive board spent a lot of time reaching out to their colleagues and urging them to participate. As the campaign grew, CUPE 2816’s organizing sparked broader support across SickKids, with other unions increasingly stepping into the fight. A union petition directed at management helped create dialogue, even as some members hesitated to sign – mainly out of fear of employer retaliation.
Local members also engaged in public outreach, standing outside the hospital early in the morning to hand out flyers to co-workers, patients and visitors – and even hospital managers – as they braved frigid temperatures to get the word out.
“Some people would come back to get more flyers for their co-workers,” says Gus Giftakopoulos, a CUPE 2816 steward. “I would leave them in the washroom sometimes,” he says, before adding with a chuckle, “by accident.”
Responses varied: some workers would turn around to grab a copy when they realized their pension was at stake, while others simply walked by in a hurry. But the tactic worked. It sparked conversations and even hurt the hospital’s fundraising efforts, with some people pledging not to donate to SickKids until the issue was addressed.
According to Antonella Hall, CUPE 2816’s recording secretary, workers were also beginning to grasp what the fight meant for their own futures as the ever-expanding campaign seeped into their consciousness.
Persistence pays off
The last major campaign action came in December 2024. CUPE, ONA, OPSEU and CBTU jointly organized a rally outside the hospital featuring a blown-up Christmas card signed by SickKids staff, cheekily calling on the employer to grant their sole wish: HOOPP.
The confidence of the SickKids workers was palpable as they half-sang, half-chanted, “We want HOOPP” in front of television cameras, surely precipitating more headaches inside management offices. The labour coalition was strong and ready to escalate its efforts in the new year. But by this point, SickKids had had enough.
Shortly after, management signalled to the union that they would be joining HOOPP, a process that was formalized in June 2025.
The triumph of this campaign belonged to the workers, who were unrelenting in their pursuit of a just outcome.
“They were unstoppable,” says Sharon Richer, secretary-treasurer of OCHU-CUPE and CUPE’s representative on the HOOPP board. “Frustrated by SickKids, this world-renowned children’s hospital, treating them unfairly compared to other Ontario hospitals over their pension plan, they chose to stand up for their rights – proving their resilience and courage time and again.”
Michael Hurley, president of OCHU-CUPE, credits the relentlessness of SickKids workers, who stayed brave and outspoken, wearing their employer down.
OCHU-CUPE Secretary-Treasurer Sharon Richer (up) and OCHU-CUPE President Michael Hurley (down) played a key role in supporting the campaign.
“They never let up. Particularly damaging to the hospital was the union’s assertion that this group of largely racialized women were doomed to retire in poverty by this ‘world class’ institution. This campaign is a model for all of us in how to fight back,” he says.
When Foster first learned of SickKids’ decision to finally join HOOPP – after years of militancy – she found the news hard to believe.
“Part of me was screaming, ‘Yes! SickKids finally did it!’ And I just thought about what we achieved because it was so tough to make SickKids do something they really had no interest in. I thought, ‘What did I do? Just what did we do here?’”
