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Delegates to the 26th biennial convention of the Hospital Employees’ Union have elected Ken Robinson as the new president of the 43,000-member union.
Robinson is a diet technician at Kelowna General Hospital and has been an HEU member for 20 years.
He has held a number of positions on the union’s Provincial Executive in the past decade, most recently as first vice-president, and is the chairperson of the Kelowna Amalgamated local.
“Over the next two years, it’s important to continue building grassroots activism at the local level,” says Robinson. “An essential part of that focuses on protecting public health care and working with community coalitions across the province.”
He says that HEU members know better than most the challenges facing public health care.
“Critical staff shortages, ongoing privatization and lack of access to resources for seniors are all concerns we are hearing from the convention floor.”
Robinson joins financial secretary Donisa Bernardo and secretary-business manager Judy Darcy as the three full-time officers of the union.
Robinson replaces Fred Muzin, who was a biomedical engineer at St. Paul’s Hospital before becoming HEU’s president in 1993 and serving in that position for 15 years. Ken is married with two children.