Currently, more than 4,000 HEU members work in contracted support services in acute, long term care, assisted and independent living facilities. Their jobs include housekeeping, dietary, laundry, clerical, and retail work.
Contracted support services workers (CSSW) are employed by private contractors that have service agreements with health authorities. Before they were contracted out, these workers were employed by health authorities, and were part of the Facilities’ subsector collective agreement.
In the early 2000s, when health authorities outsourced these jobs to multinational companies like Sodexo, Compass, Acciona and Aramark, many of these members had to rejoin HEU and negotiate new collective agreements.
In 2019, the provincial government reversed the laws that allowed contracting out of hospital support services. In 2021, the provincial government announced that housekeeping and food services in hospitals would be returned in a phased approach back to the health authorities.
Returning privatized workers in-house
