'This is rather inappropriate'

A local member of the Hospital Employees Union is upset about his union's literature campaign during the recent BC election, which urged its members to vote for the BC NDP.

Kevin Hamilton works as a medical device reprocessing technician at Kelowna General Hospital, and he's been part of the Hospital Employees Union for about a year and a half. This was the first election that he was a part of the union and he says he was shocked to receive pamphlets, emails, text messages and phone calls throughout the campaign that tried to convince him to vote for the BC NDP.

“I was initially shocked because of how pointed it was, HEU was directly telling their members to vote a particular way and I just thought, 'Wow this is rather inappropriate,” Hamilton said.

“These people have really put a lot of energy into this partisan-type campaign.”

Hamilton wrote a letter to his union outlining his concerns, noting his letter was written on behalf of six of his other colleagues who wanted to remain anonymous. He said that even after he asked the HEU to remove him from the mailing list, he continued to receive pamphlets.

HEU pamphlets shared with Castanet outline “What we've gained with the BC NDP government” and “What happened to health care when John Rustad's former party was in power.”

“John Rustad's BC Conservatives want to cut and privatize health care – let's make sure they don't,” one pamphlet reads.

“In this provincial election, Loyal Wooldridge has the best chance to win against John Rustad's Conservatives in Kelowna Centre ... HEU recommends all members please vote for the BC NDP's Loyal Wooldridge.”

Hamilton, 51, says he has reached out to Elections BC to see if the communication from his union is allowed, and they told him it is.

“They can legally do it but it's morally inappropriate,” Hamilton said. “People apparently call [Elections BC] quite regularly about these particular unions and how they advertise in a partisan-type manner.”

'Long tradition of activism'

In a written statement from HEU spokesperson Lynn Bueckert, she said the union has a “long tradition of activism during and between elections in support of worker-friendly parties and governments.”

“In the recent provincial election, our union took every opportunity to let HEU members know what was at stake for health care,” Bueckert said.

“We highlighted how John Rustand and his BC Conservative’s platform on health care was a reckless blueprint for the health system’s future. And that HEU endorsed the BC NDP’s commitment to continuing their work to expand and improve public health care.”

But Hamilton, who's also an active West Kelowna RCMP officer and member of the National Police Federation, says he's never seen a union push its members so hard to vote for a specific party.

“[The National Police Federation] reinforce our rights within the collective agreement but they don't dictate to us as to who we vote for,” he said.

“I've been part of many different unions over the years in different careers and I've never seen this level of rhetoric.”

Job security

He's also concerned about some of the messaging from the union that said their job security could be threatened if the BC Conservatives formed government, noting that many of his colleagues are first generation immigrants.

“When they start reading this literature about possibly losing their jobs if a different government gets in, it really upsets them and scares them,” Hamilton said. “I don't have that issue because I have another career and I've planned for the future but these people don't have that, so this type of rhetoric as part of this campaign from the HEU is quite scary for a lot of my colleagues.

“I thought, job security? Are they kidding? We can barely muster up enough people to keep the operating rooms operating.”

The HEU says they've heard from thousands of its members about their “HEU Votes” campaign and the feedback has been “overwhelmingly supportive.”