CUPE’s strike for “living wages”
Posted May 8, 2026
Unionized long-term care and senior home workers in Nova Scotia began their strike on Friday, April 13. They are represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) is a research arm for unions. The unions provide CCPA the needed funding. CCPA calculates what they propose as a “living wage” based on the location of an employee group. They then argue that it should be the minimum wage for all employees, whether or not they are unionized.
Nova Scotia’s minimum wage increased to $16.75 per hour on April 1, 2026. CCPA calculates their “living wage” for Nova Scotia at $27.60 per hour, a bit higher in Halifax and lower elsewhere in the province.
The process used to develop the number “typically models a family of four (two adults working full-time, two children).” An hourly wage of $27.60 means annual income of $50,232. So the modelled family would have an income just over $100,000.
The offers to employees of care homes align with those paid to employees doing similar work in hospitals, home care and other parts of the healthcare system. The terms of the offer to CUPE members have been accepted at 29 other long-term care facilities in the past six months.
The pace of bargaining with the remainder has been dreadfully slow.
The contracts with acute care employees provide increases retroactive to 2023 and will complete in 2027. The province funds the employers, so any changes in hourly rates need provincial approval.
The projected wage rates in 2027 of the care giving classifications, such as nursing, physiotherapists and physio aides, social workers, continuing care assistants(CCAs) and many others all exceed the CCPA “living wage.”
Hourly pay for long term care assistants (LTCAs) will be at $21.22. There is a significant need for more continuing care assistants. LTCAs may become CCA’s by enrolling in CCA training paid for by the province.
The lower hourly rates apply to some of the support staff, such as hairdressers, utility workers, food services, housekeeping, and laundry. At facilities that have reached agreements, most support staff receive hourly rates about 30% below the CUPE goal.
The union does not ask for the difference to occur in one year, but they want a commitment to move toward that goal. Until late March they did not provide numbers, but expected the employers to offer more than the amounts that were agreed for the acute care workers in the same job classifications.
For the province, that would be like bidding against themselves. Worse, any increase on the hourly rates would have to apply to all of the government-funded employers that have reached agreements.
The “living wage” calculation as a target for minimum wages for everybody is clever branding for the unions. That does not mean that it is going to succeed at the bargaining table.
It is regrettable that the 2023-2027 acute care employment agreements were reached so long after the commencement of the wage agreement.
The workers now on strike have been missing income from many shifts.
When there is an agreement, they will be eligible for substantial retroactive pay for the increases from the beginning of the 2023-2027 period.
The unions involved in acute care are legislated to be part of a council of unions, which requires that NSNU, Unifor, NSGEU, and CUPE all bargain Acute Care contracts together as one bargaining unit per group (with four groups in total: Nurses, Admin Professionals, Health Care Professionals, and Support Services).
The province is reducing support for many groups. Universities are laying off hundreds of employees. Arts organizations are at the brink of collapse. Free bus rides for students have been taken away. Premier Houston is not going to support a contract that includes commitments toward CCPA’s “living wage.”
To do so with the holdout care home workers would affect every employer, not just in health care but across the whole panoply of government-funded workers: schools, highways, office workers and their support staff.
It is evident that CUPE did not persuade the council of unions to hold out for the 2023-2027 contract to include a move toward CCPA’s “living wage.”
The union is doing a disservice to the workers on strike. They are giving up a lot of pay pursuing an outcome that will not happen.
The union should focus on the next contract with the next round of bargaining, which will begin in 2027.
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