It takes a team

HEU members stand up for each other

Our more than 60,000 members are essential to delivering quality care across the province. You can find us working in hospitals, clinics, long-term care facilities and in community services.

During this unprecedented pandemic, and every day, your union has adapted quickly to changing circumstances and has been standing strong to protect members’ rights and safety.

As a member of HEU, you belong to B.C.’s largest health care union and its long and proud history of advocacy. We’re here for you.

Eighty years of strength and solidarity

When HEU formed in 1944, the founding members knew that as part of a union, we were stronger together. Those early members were motivated to improve working conditions for themselves and caring conditions for their patients and residents. As HEU organized more workplaces across BC, members united to bargain strong agreements and defend public health care.

From winning gender-based pay equity, to securing protective equipment for more workers during the pandemic, to fighting to reverse privatization, HEU members look out for one another – and have for eight decades.

Leading in our workplace and the community

Today, our union is even more diverse and we provide new services in ways the founding HEU members couldn’t imagine.

At every workplace, each HEU member is connected to the power of more than 60,000 other members through their union local. Shop stewards are trained to advocate for the people closest to them. And in the democratic tradition of industrial unions, every worker has the opportunity to contribute.

Active member participation – in the workplace and the community – is the greatest source of HEU’s power when it comes to improving the lives of union members.

And as the BC Health Services Division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), HEU is part of the biggest union in Canada

Generations of health care workers have benefited from the power and pride that comes from standing together. In that tradition of solidarity and social justice, HEU members continue to stand up for every member of the health care team.