Former Chinese labour camp worker led fight for HEU
Name: Tommy Liu
Occupation: Staffing Clerk, Richmond Hospital
Union: HEU
A strong work ethic, promoting labour rights and defending one’s beliefs are some of the values that Hospital Employees’ Union member Tommy Liu is teaching his 11-year-old son.
They are values that stem from some extremely challenging life experiences for Liu, a staffing clerk at Richmond Hospital.
In 1967, during Communist China’s cultural revolution, Liu was sent to a labour camp for seven years upon finishing high school. Chinese students had no other choice, and suffered deplorable working conditions.
“There are no unions in China,” says Liu. “You’re not allowed to even join groups. I was sent to do hard labour on a farm when I was 16 or 17 years old. At the labour camps, if a student went AWOL and escaped, they’d find them, bring them back to camp, tie them up and beat them to teach a lesson. It was very scary.
“And there wasn’t enough food,” he continues. “We were starving. We only ate meat once a month. It was very hard.”
Liu recalls that rice was rationed and the youth were only fed once a day. “We worked from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 or 9:00 at night. Sometimes, I wouldn’t even get a day off.”
Liu arrived in Canada from Shanghai, China in 1977 – his immigration helped along by having a Canadian-born grandmother – and immediately enrolled in ESL classes.
Before long, Liu was working and able to save enough money to take a certificate cooking course at Vancouver Community College. In 1981, he was hired as a cook at Richmond Hospital.
Over the next eight years, Liu worked his way up to in-charge chef. But when Sodexo took over Richmond Hospital’s food services contract, Liu left to work in the stores department as a distribution aide, and as a staffing clerk.
Liu became an HEU activist when he saw the problems caused by privatized services at his work .
“I went to union meetings because I was very frustrated,” says Liu. “I fight for what’s right because of my experiences in the labour camps. In China, you don’t have labour rights or human rights… I appreciate living in Canada, and that’s why I focus on helping workers in our HEU membership.”
Liu is determined to never forget the hardships he endured in his native country, and takes every opportunity to tell his story to inspire others to make a difference.
Having union-negotiated benefits, Liu says, makes a huge difference to him and his family “especially the health care, pensions, you can get early retirement, dental – all these things are covered. I’m in my late-50s, and need more medications now, so the benefits are very important for those of us getting older.”
Although Liu will qualify for retirement soon, he has no plans to do so. “We’re recruiting young people as shop stewards at my local, and I’m mentoring them. My concern [for] the union is there’s not enough young workers trained [as activists] and there’s lots of people closer to retirement. We need the young blood trained to take our spots.”
In recent years, Liu says, he’s seeing more visible minority members get involved in the union. “I used to be the only Chinese person at HEU conferences and conventions, but now more minorities are standing up for their rights. I just want to help people.”