An Exciting Addition to Our Bargaining Committee 

Hi BCGEU, 👋 

We haven't properly introduced ourselves, and it's about time we did! We're the BCGEU members of the Community Bargaining Association's (CBA) negotiations team. Moving forward, we're the workers who will represent you at the bargaining table by amplifying your concerns and your interests to your bosses, so that the employer association they just joined (HEABC) can't ignore you.

Firstly, we want to welcome you to the family. Secondly, we are pleased to announce that the BCGEU has appointed supportive housing activist and Local 301 Chair Kate Banky to the CBA negotiations team!

You need someone in this round of bargaining who knows your work and can advance the issues that matter most to supportive housing workers. Kate Banky has not only worked at Victoria Cool Aid Society as a mental health and client care worker for eight years, but she's also been bargaining for Component 3 (Community Social Services) members over the last several months. 

We know many of you have expressed concerns about how the bargaining proposals at the CBA table - and even the current CBA agreement - compare to the bargaining priorities that you identified for the Community Social Services negotiations team. For this information and more, please visit the BCGEU's supportive housing website. 

Who We Are 

Most of our members are community health workers who deliver critical health services right to our clients' doors, but we also work in group homes, substance-use support and mental health centres. In some ways, our work intersects with yours, supporting vulnerable communities through mental health crises and responding to the toxic drug problem. If you want to know more about the Committee's backgrounds, check out our bios on the CBA bargaining hub. 

As many of you know, the CBA also includes over 1,500 BCGEU members employed at RainCity and Lookout. You should have always been paid the same as your peers at these two supportive housing agencies; now we have a clearer path to close remaining compensation gaps. By uniting with them, you're also growing your bargaining power. Over 3,200 of you organizing around the same goals in the same bargaining association gives you a much louder voice than you had when you were separated by contracts. 

We look forward to growing our movement with a larger base of supportive housing members. Workers in your sector have long been a valued part of the CBA, but now you have the numbers and the solidarity to make meaningful gains in your workplaces. 

In Solidarity, 

Scott De Long, Bargaining Chair and BCGEU Vice-President for Community Health Services

UWU/MoveUP