Vanocuver, March 7, 2026.– Hospital Employees Union (HEU) Financial Secretary Betty Valenzuela with other HEU members proudly celebrated International Women’s Day (IWD) with Migrante BC at the Seniors 411 Centre. The Hospital Employees’ Union represents more than 60,000 health care workers across B.C., who work in more than 200 different types of health care jobs.
The union was honoured to bring greetings to Migrante BC’s International Working Women’s Day Event, joining many other Filipino and ally community groups in building solidarity for women and migrant workers in B.C. and Canada.
Betty Valenzuela, Financial Secretary of the HEU, gave her solidarity and inspiring message at the event. Valenzuela started her message with these strong words, “I am the first Filipina, the first person of color to be elected in 2018 to this leadership position. I am so proud not for myself but for the Filipino community and people of color in the province of British Columbia.”
On this International Day for Working Women, she recognized that health care jobs are predominantly done by women workers, thus when the HEU fights for better working conditions for health care workers, it fights for better working conditions for women and gender-diverse workers. Valenzuela continued to recognize that care work is often done by migrant workers, since more than a third of HEU’s members are racialized workers. “And a significant portion of our members are immigrant workers like me.”
Valenzuela raised the issues of workers’ precarity and vulnerability and the Canadian government’s recent immigration levels. “We also know that often, our health care system relies on migrant workers who have precarious residency status, particularly when the system is experiencing staffing shortages. When this happens, for example, during the pandemic, we call on migrant workers to fill much-needed health care jobs. We ask them to stay, get training and experience, and promise them a path to permanent residency. But in the past two years, the federal government has been cutting back on immigration.
And what this has meant for migrant workers is that they can no longer get jobs in health care. And their path to permanent residency is shut down. We are suddenly turning away thousands of workers who have experience and are trained to work in health care. The promises and commitments we made to them that their statuses will be regularized have suddenly vanished. They started building their lives here, sent their kids to school here, and now we are telling them they need to leave.“
HEU continues to push and call on the provincial and federal governments to:
- Reverse the severe cuts to temporary resident levels, including the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, international student permits, and spousal work permits.
- Abolish closed work permits that are tied to specific employers, as this creates precarity for workers.
- Fully restore B.C.’s Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) allocation to 2024 levels and ensure it reflects regional and sectoral labour market needs.
- Prioritize the transition of workers with temporary work permits in the high-demand health care sector to permanent residency through dedicated, accessible and expedited pathways.
HEU has a long and proud history of winning important things for health care workers. HEU fights every day to make sure that health care workers have a strong, unified voice. Valenzuela said that “HEU continues to fight for justice for migrant workers:
- Health care workers deserve stable and safe working conditions to provide the quality care that British Columbians expect. That is why we have a long and proud history of winning important things for health care workers;
- We have fought for and won pay equity in health care;
- We brought 4,000 privatized health care workers into the public sector, substantially improving their wages and benefits;
- We advocated for seniors care workers to be paid the same wage no matter where they work in B.C., so that there is no wage disparities between seniors care sites;
- This past year, we fought to get 8,000 more senior care workers back into a common province-wide collective agreement. That means that they will see improved benefits and will have access to a pension plan.”
Valenzuela thanked the organizers for inviting the HEU and encouraged the audience: “If you know people who work in health care and who want to join our movement, I encourage you to get them in touch with us!”
She ended her message with the strong chant for women: “Abante babae, palaban militante!”
Thank you, Betty Valenzuela, for a very inspiring speech of workers’ solidarity.
