Yuya Tamai / CC
More than 7500 healthcare workers across the province are set to vote on a strike this week.
That includes lab technologists, mental health workers, care team assistants, hospital-based paramedics, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, social workers, psychologists, cardiac sonographers, MRI technologists, and radiological technologists.
The Health Care Council of Unions represents three unions, NSGEU, Unifor, and CUPE, in healthcare worker collective bargaining.
Members say they called for the vote after three days of conciliation talks with the province, Nova Scotia Health, and the IWK failed to produce an agreement Wednesday.
Jason MacLean, the president of NSGEU, says workers deserve to be shown more respect from their employers and the government.
“It is unconscionable that these health care ‘heroes’ can suddenly go to ‘zeroes’ at the bargaining table,” he said. “This government offered them less than they gave other public sector workers in the last two years.”
Council members say healthcare workers in the province are falling behind their counterparts across the country, leaving many among the lowest paid in the nation.
They say seven years of austerity by the provincial government has caused wages to fall below where they should be, in comparison to other provinces.
Members say that only makes healthcare worker shortages worse.
The strike vote for NSGEU’s members starts Monday and for CUPE’s members Tuesday.
Results are expected by Friday, which would put the workers in a legal strike position as early as the third week of July.
