"Private Health Care: Greed Before Need" read one of the signs carried by workers at the demonstration. Other rallies took place that day throughout the province, including in Richmond, a suburb to the south of Vancouver. In rural British Columbia, 2,000 rallied in Grand Forks and another 250 in Castlegar in the West Kootenays.

Passed during a late night session of the provincial legislature on January 27, Bill 29 breaks existing union contracts in health care and social services. The law ends all protection against contracting out for 90 percent of the 46,000 members of the Hospital Employees Union (HEU). Many members of the British Columbia Nurses Union (BCNU) and the Health Sciences Association (HSA) who are not directly involved in bedside care are affected by the bill, which also gives hospitals the unrestricted right to lay off workers without regard to seniority.

According to the Vancouver Sun, "Virtually every health-care service that doesn't directly touch a patient's bed can be contracted out.... That means private companies could provide hospital laundry, maintenance, accounting and technology services."

The new law also cancels agreements that would have brought the wages of more than 13,000 lower-paid workers in group homes and other community services closer to those paid other health-care workers.

On January 29 workers responded to this attack by waging a one-day strike across British Columbia (B.C.) and holding rallies in 11 different communities. Approximately 500 workers attended a Burnaby rally organized by the British Columbia Government Employees Union.

At the spirited rally held after the February 2 march in Vancouver, HEU member Brenda Klock, a cook at the Royal Columbian Hospital, told the Militant, "They have no respect for the working class, the poor, and the elderly. All private health care will do is give less service to the people of B.C. and profit off the backs of workers. We need to fight and show up at all the rallies and write MLAs [members of the provincial legislature.]"

Denise Siteman, a HEU care aide at Holyrood Manor, a long-term care facility, pointed out that besides wanting to "privatize, shut everything down, and cut wages," the government also aims "to break the unions because we are powerful." Two female care aides in the HEU at Burnaby Hospital, who didn't want their names used, said they were there to "protest job cuts--the government is putting us out of a job. There's a lot at stake here. A lot of us are single mothers. Do they want us to go on welfare?"

Members of other unions such as the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the HSA, and the BCNU also came to the action with their union banners. Karen Stearman, a HSA member at the Cancer Agency, said, "Tearing up contracts is evil. If you get rid of the unions, you're creating a fearful, have-not society. We're acting to protect our basic rights."

Darlene Kennedy, a teacher at Mt. Pleasant Elementary School, sported a "Proud to be a teacher" button. On January 28 45,000 teachers across the province staged a one-day walkout to protest a contract imposed by the Liberal government. "We're all in this together," Kennedy stated. "I have friends in the health-care system, but everyone is affected. Something needs to be done--look at what this government is doing to seniors."  
 
Anger at attacks on services to elderly
Many protesters expressed anger at the government attacks on income and services provided the elderly. Since the beginning of the year, subsidies for prescription drugs have been severely reduced, a monthly income supplement of $49.50 has been eliminated, and the cost of subsidized bus passes has shot up from $45 a year to $40 a month. "Taking away bus passes from seniors--that's nasty," said a HEU housekeeper at St. Paul's Hospital.

In a further reflection of the broader concerns of working people at the rally, many participants spiritedly chanted "Six bucks sucks" when one of the speakers at the rally referred to the Liberal government's introduction of a so-called "training wage" of $6 an hour that allows employers to hire some new workers below B.C.'s minimum wage of $8 an hour.

Looking ahead to future actions, Gretchen Dulmage, a cook at the Children's and Women's Hospital and vice-chair of her HEU local, said she "hopes that we're successful in the court case." The officialdom of the HEU has challenged Bill 29 in the courts based on Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. "I think we should also shut down the province--and not just for a day," Dulmage added.

Many workers at the rally spoke of their plans to attend the February 23 rally in front of the provincial legislature organized by the B.C. Federation of Labour and the B.C. Health Coalition. Unions across B.C. are hiring buses and organizing car pools to take workers there. The Council of Senior Citizens Organizations of B.C. has reserved 30 buses and expects as many as 10,000 seniors to join the rally.

This growing resistance has begun to create divisions within the ruling class over how far it can push these attacks. The Vancouver Sun, the main daily in the city and an outspoken supporter of the province's Liberal government, has called for rethinking the cuts to bus passes for seniors and legal aid programs.

Mike Barker is an HEU member who works at Vancouver General Hospital. Beverly Bernardo and Joyce Meissenheimer contributed to this article.  
 
 
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