The decision by front line workers at the Out of the Cold Community Association to unionize is mostly about making sure that the current positive working conditions continue, and maybe to offer a bit of an example to care sector workers elsewhere who aren’t as fortunate.
The Armour Group, property managers of Founders Square, have pointed to poor service to justify the termination of the janitorial services contract with GDI, causing the layoff of seven Black janitors. This Saturday Robert Wright, a tenant of the building, wrote a letter to set the record straight. “I have been in that building for several years and have never had occasion to complain about the state of cleanliness in the mornings.” Wright wants both the Armour Group as well as one of its main tenants, the Province of Nova Scotia, to right this wrong.
Three good unionized jobs are lost as the National Research Council (NRC) in Halifax awards its new cleaning contract to a non-unionized company, paying minimum wage and providing no benefits. About fifty people gathered at the NRC office on Oxford Street to demand better.