“It’s been impressive how much people have done the social distancing. Not everybody believes what the province has done is right. Some feel we’ve gone too far. However, up north here, our numbers are fabulous. So, I think we must be doing something right.
I’ve been a Food Service Worker at the hospital since 2008, and currently work at our onsite Tim Hortons.
I deal with ordering and putting away orders when they come in, organizing staff, regular day-to-day stuff that has to be done.
Since COVID, I’ve been working in the kitchen as the supervisor assistant because Tim Hortons has been closed. I was reallocated to the hospital kitchen, where I’m helping staff navigate scheduling and vacation time.
We have clear direction from management. We wear masks and goggles when delivering to patients. In the kitchen, after a risk assessment that I did with a manager, we now wear masks on the tray line, which we hadn’t been before.
I am co-chair of my local. I sit on the health and safety committee. I’m active in education for health and safety. It’s one of my passions. I really enjoy solving safety issues.
We haven’t been able to hold local meetings because of COVID. We just did a trial run on Zoom to see if we can have a meeting. Because of my health and safety background, people really have a lot of questions for me. It was challenging because I don’t get good internet at my house.
But overall, it went really well, and I think we’re now going to try doing shop steward meetings on Zoom. And then from there, we’re going to do a union meeting.
We have to try something new because our members do want to be connecting with us.
It’s definitely a new era. We were talking about a parking lot meeting, just anything to get people involved and engaged because I think engaged people are happier, especially if they can ask questions and get concrete answers.”
- Susan, Food Service Worker, part of the health care team