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HAMILTON SEN Community Health Care should tell its supervisors to stop threatening support staff with a lockout and spreading stories about the quality of their work, says the president of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 4800.

“We have had reports from SEN nursing staff that one supervisor in particular is accusing our members of cancelling nursing visits over the last three months and losing money for the agency,” said Local 4800 President Mike Walters. “The same supervisor has told our members that they are going out March 4 and are not coming back.”

SEN will replace support staff with retired nurses, the supervisor is reported as saying. In a letter sent today to SEN, Walters asks if there is proof of the allegation that Local 4800 members have been cancelling visits.

“We have been sitting across the table from management for three months and this is the first we have heard of these allegations,” he said. “If they are true, why was there no disciplinary action? Why were the allegations not brought to the table?”

The 15 full-time and 22 part-time support staff mostly women who earn an average of $15 per hour are only asking for a fair collective agreement without wage concessions, Walters said. Instead of negotiating, SEN is preparing to lock out staff and, in the meantime, allowing its supervisors to sully the reputations of loyal workers.

“They should either put the evidence on the table or tell their supervisors to put a lid on it,” Walters said.

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For more information, contact:
Mike Walters, President, CUPE Local 4800
905-385-4555 - 905-308-6997 (cell)
Tom Baker, CUPE National Rep
905-575-5411 - 905-630-1107 (cell)
Pat Daley, CUPE Communications Rep.
416-616-6142 (cell)