Hospital workers in rural N.S. won't strike during H1N1
Last Updated: Wednesday, November 4, 2009 | 6:27 PM AT
CBC News
Hospital workers in districts outside Halifax will not be going on strike while the province combats the second wave of the H1N1 pandemic.
Some locals of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, who have been negotiating a new contract since April, are in a legal strike position as of Nov. 17.
Karen MacKenzie, chairwoman of the union's bargaining team, said heath-care workers want to assure the public that while they may take strike votes, they will suspend any strike action until at least mid-January.
"CUPE workers in rural Nova Scotia will never put Nova Scotia people's health at risk," she said. "We've always had ways to boycott that."
The bargaining unit represents 3,300 workers at 33 hospitals in rural Nova Scotia.
The union wants wage parity with health-care workers who do similar jobs in Halifax-area hospitals and said that could be achieved by boosting current salaries by between two and eight per cent. The government has said it's offering unions a one-per-cent increase.
MacKenzie, an X-ray technician at Colchester Regional Hospital in Truro, warned that the situation could come to a head.
"The provincial government and the employers really have to be aware," she said. "At this point, we're good until the 11th of January."
CUPE hospital workers include x-ray technicians, switchboard operators and licensed nurse practitioners.
