“The 450 employees at the Chatham Kent Health Alliance were tired of the poor service and representation we were receiving from SEIU and voted in 2004 to change to CLAC. At the time, we were told that we would lose our seniority if we changed unions. This was a scare tactic designed to keep us from exercising our right to change.

“All of the terms and conditions of the old collective agreement, including seniority, continued to operate as normal. Some of us had over 20 years of seniority, and there is no way we would have changed unions if we were going to lose our seniority. If employees could lose their seniority if they changed unions no one would ever change!”

Leanne Crawford, RPN, Chatham-Kent Health Alliance

In the past 16 years, thousands of members have voted to change unions in search of better union representation. There has not been one documented incident where an employee has lost their accumulated seniority as a result of a change in union representation.