With placards reading “I‘m a target for unemployment,” and “People not profits,” approximately 30 members and supporters of the Hospital Employees‘ Union (HEU) marched from the hospital to the Schubert Centre. The union members were at the Schubert Centre to make their voices heard at an Interior Health board meeting on Wednesday. The HEU is concerned that if the housekeeping and maintenance duties are privatized, the quality of service will drop noticeably. “Cleaning for profit cannot achieve the same results we get now,” said Amanda Burgess, a housekeeper at the Kelowna General Hospital. Union members said that more than 300 jobs would be lost if housekeeping and plant services (maintenance staff) duties are included in bids by private companies to build the new towers at the Vernon Jubilee Hospital and the Kelowna General Hospital. Marcy Cohen, director of research for the HEU, said that if privatized, housekeeping and maintenance jobs will pay significantly less then they currently do. This could create issues with recruitment and retention of employees, she said. “Right now you have a staff with pensions and good benefits; they want to stay,” Cohen said. “If people are not going to stay then you have to rehire and train new people. This is where the link with declining quality of services comes in.”
Although he said that it was too early to determine if the health authority will privatize housekeeping and maintenance, IHA chairman Alan Dolman, did make it clear that the speed at which the new towers would be built was more important than whether the jobs would be privatized. When asked if he wanted to see the HEU members lose their jobs, Dolman stated, “No, what I want to see is two towers built.” “If you (bid to) build two towers and running them is part of the proposal then I have to accept that.” If the IHA decides to privatize plant services at the two hospitals, it will mark the first time in B.C. history that hospital maintenance jobs will be privatized. According to Randy Dowhaniuk, an electrician at Kelowna General Hospital, firing experienced workers when the market is in such short supply is ludicrous. “With the shortage of trades, I find it hard to believe that we‘re looking at firing. We must be the only employer in BC firing (tradespeople).” Interior Health‘s requests for qualification process will narrow the field of private contractors interested in building the new towers to three or four who will then submit a request for proposal. The winner of this process will build the new towers and potentially take over the housekeeping and maintenance contracts, leaving HEU employees out of work
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