PSI Health Blog

Health workers union prevails in Nova Scotia, Canada

Proving that unions can stop efforts to make workers pay for an economic crisis that was not of their creation, CUPE members were successful in defending their hard-earned right to wage parity and their right to strike.

(see prior coverage: Global Issues tested as strike looms in Nova Scotia)

The Nova Scotia provincial government had argued that the union's wage demands, based on maintaining parity with non-rural areas, was not possible due to budget deficits in the climate created by the current crisis. Karen MacKenzie, president of CUPE Local 2525, which represents basically all primary health-care workers within the hospitals, responded by saying  "he (Premier Dexter) is not going to balance his budget on the backs of Nova Scotia health-care workers. That’s just not happening.”

When the union decided to go on strike, politicians in the Conservative party questioned their right to strike. When their party was in power, they had attempted to pass legislation that would deny health workers that right.

The union was undeterred. Picket lines went up at 6:00 am on 18 January, as had been announced by the union well in advance of the strike deadline.

Global issues tested as strike looms in Nova Scotia, Canada

Health and School Workers Refuse to Pay for the Crisis as they Defend Wage Parity and their Right to Strike 

Karen MacKenzie, president of CUPE Local 2525: "We are not going backwards"

Negotiating Committees for 4,100 hospital workers and more than 3,000 school board workers in Nova Scotia, Canada, have announced a strike deadline of Monday, January 18, 2010. They are represented by CUPE, The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents 600 000 public sector workers across Canada. Both groups are already in a legal strike position.

The CUPE hospital workers are in 33 hospitals in rural Nova Scotia, outside of Halifax. The key outstanding issue for the hospital group is maintaining wage parity with their counterparts in Halifax, something they have had for 10 years now. 

The school board workers are in eight school boards, also outside of Halifax. For the school board group, the issue is a contract offer that’s inferior to ones that have been given to other workers in the sector.

And a group of 3,500 long term and community care workers are not far behind them, facing similar issues in bargaining.

PSI leader Ogmundur Jonasson leads democratic opposition in Iceland

Ogmundur Jonasson --a member of the Parliament of Iceland and of the Executive Boards of PSI and EPSU --, continues to successfully lead the opposition to the unfair treatment of Iceland by the governments of the UK and the Netherlands. Today, the movement he leads succeeded in getting the President of Iceland to refuse to sign legislation that would impose onerous conditions on his country's population.

Acting on behalf of powerful financial concerns, the governments of the UK and the Netherlands have used the IMF and EU to pressure Icelanders to shoulder the burden the price of the decisions of the executives of Landsbanki and foreign investors (see story below from the Financial Times) . 

Jonasson, who resigned his post as Health Minister over his views on the Icesave agreement, has stated that "the British and Dutch are using the IMF and the EU as weapons to force the country to accept more debt than it is responsible for." 

UK: UNISON opposes new attack on the NHS

In a new move to weaken the UK's National Health System and shift resources towards privatized health care, the government of England is introducing so called "personal health budgets."

(For details, see "Warning issued on impact of patient control over budgets," by clicking "continue reading" below).

UNISON, a PSI affiliate which represents NHS health workers, vigorously opposes the move. Karen Jennings, UNISON's head of health warns that the policy "would take money out of the NHS and divert it to private firms."

The commercialization of health care would have devastating effects. As Ms Jennings warned last year in a joint statement by the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) and the European Hospital and Healthcare Employers Association (HOSPEEM): "We cannot let market forces run healthcare systems or we will end up with a two-tier system of healthcare delivery....the universal principles of healthcare solidarity are the starting point and not the internal market."

(see story dated 9 June, 2009 by clicking "continue reading" below)