SOUND OFF: Hospital Employees’ Union looks calm from the outside. Members know better

This year, locals across B.C. sent in 17 amendments on how leadership is chosen and held to account. They included a direct vote of all members for president, term limits, and rules to make vote results transparent and make sure no member gets more than one vote. Not one of the 17 reached the floor. Nobody has to act in bad faith for that to be a problem. When the people whose positions are at stake decide which reforms get debated, the process cannot look neutral.

Other health care unions have already made this change. BC Nurses’ Union members vote directly for their president. The Health Sciences Association made the switch in 2024, and in 2025, all of its members voted for president for the first time. HEU members are asking for the same thing.

Members also have questions about how their votes are counted. In December 2025, HEU reported that 107 of 161 locals had voted to ratify our main facilities contract. That is 66.5 per cent, just short of the two-thirds of locals the constitution requires. When this was noted, three days later the count became 108, enough to pass. HEU says it reclassified one local’s 70-69 result after an internal review. There was no new vote and no recount.

Members have asked for the certified, local-by-local results ever since. They still have not been released, and members ended up going to B.C. Supreme Court to seek the records from the company that ran the vote.

Then there is how members are treated when they need their union most. I hear from members across the province who say their bullying and harassment complaints, at work and inside the union, went nowhere. Members who ask hard questions in public are too often labelled bullies instead of being answered. A union that rightly asks employers to keep workers safe has to hold itself to the same standard.

None of this means HEU members don’t care about fixing health care. We work in it every day. Mr. Collins asks whether Ms. Nederpel is up to the challenge. I’d ask a simpler question: if support for the current leadership really is 80 per cent, why not let every member vote?

On the surface, HEU looks calm. Underneath, many members feel unheard, unprotected and shut out of their own union. A union that wants the public behind it on health care should start by giving its own members a real voice.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.

by James Seldon

SOUND OFF: Hospital Employees’ Union looks calm from the outside. Members know better

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