Dear members,
We have forced the government to change its mandate for wage increases for HCCSS workers during the government’s Bill 124 wage suppression period!
The current government used Bill 124 to impose three years of low wage settlements on all broader public sector workers, including HCCSS employees. CUPE and other unions opposed this law and, after years of struggle, defeated it. After much delay, the government conceded defeat and repealed Bill 124.
However, the Treasury Board did not provide an adequate mandate to settle the HCCSS Bill 124 wage re-openers. As a result, all HCCSS workers were unable to bargain a satisfactory wage re-opener with the HCCSSs.
In response, CUPE and others began to campaign to get a satisfactory wage re-opener, bringing a mass electronic signature campaign to Queen’s Park, protesting outside the Treasury Board, raising our case in the media, and writing the Treasury Board president demanding better treatment and explaining why this was in the government’s interest too.
Thanks to your campaign, the HCCSSs have received a new mandate from Treasury to bargain with us. We go back to bargaining with the HCCSSs on May 24.
We have momentum. But we need to keep the pressure up — now more than ever. Following the membership webinar on April 22, hundreds of members signed on to the “Workers and Families Can’t Wait” hand-written petition demanding a fair wage increase, better staffing, and a better quality of care.
We have made progress, but for the next month we must step up and push Treasury’s mandate to get every dollar that we are due.
It’s time to make sure that every single member of all eight CUPE HCCSS bargaining units signs on now! Working together, we can win.