Operations at several owned by JBS, which processes one-fifth of the country’s beef, were affected, according to union representatives and Facebook posts meant for employees.
The Globe and Mail Tara Deschamps and Brett Bundale The Canadian Press Bookmark Please log in to listen to this story. Also available in French and Mandarin. Log In Create Free Account
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Grocery store workers are struggling with heightened stress and anxiety as they remain on the front lines of a surge in COVID-19 infections in Canada’s hotspot areas, industry watchers say.
Despite being deemed essential and continuing to go into work as stay-at-home orders are renewed, most supermarket employees have yet to receive a vaccine or a pay boost.
St. Vincent nurses in Massachusetts in fourth week of strike for safe staffing
Nurses at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts are entering the fourth week of strike action. St. Vincent is owned by Tenet Healthcare, a Dallas, Texas-based conglomerate that has so far spent at least $22 million to hire strikebreaking replacement nurses. After a series of federally mediated negotiations, the nurses, represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, took their demand for safe ratios and patient care to the picket line on March 8 .
Roughly 700 nurses maintain the picket in shifts. Two entrances, one to the parking garage and to the loading docks, have become hotspots. Last week, the hospital installed two surveillance towers to monitor both entrances 24/7, under the pretext of maintaining safety. Worcester police officers, paid for by the hospital to keep the entrances open at a rate of $30,000 a day, installed a surveillance camera of their own.
Striking nurses at St. Vincent Hospital starved of strike pay by MNA
Nurses at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, are in the fourth week of an open-ended strike, demanding safe staffing ratios. Having walked out on March 8, 10 days after issuing management a strike notice, they have sacrificed nearly four weeks of pay.
The Dallas, Texas-based corporate owner, Tenet Healthcare, has so far spent $22 million for strikebreakers, public relations, and police details, and recently installed surveillance towers, in what has become a one-sided war of attrition, as the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) union seeks to isolate and wear down nurses, depriving them of strike pay.
St. Vincent Hospital nurses in Worcester, Mass. in second week of strike for safe staffing ratios
Nurses at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, have entered their second week of an ongoing strike. They are demanding that Tenet Healthcare, which owns St. Vincent Hospital, agree to establish strict ratios for safer patient and workplace conditions. The roughly 700 nurses on the picket line, members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, have been joined by other health care workers, including personal care assistants (PCA), pulmonary technicians and housekeepers, who face similarly dangerous conditions at the hospital.
On February 10 the nurses gave 89 percent approval to authorize a strike. Negotiations resumed the next day but quickly stalled again, as hospital management refused to address their central concern: assignment limits of four patients to every nurse on medical-surgical floors.