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ontario hospital workers rally in ottawa
the unions are negotiating a new provincial contract while fighting bill 124, the government’s public sector wage restraint bill.
aug 16 2021
2 minute read
registered practical nurses, personal support workers, environmental cleaners and other staff from ottawa area hospitals protested outside of the bruyère -hôpital saint-vincent hospital on monday.
errol mcgihon
/
postmedia
by: megan gillis
hospital workers including registered practical nurses, personal support workers and cleaners rallied in ottawa monday against what their union called wage cuts and an attack on working conditions amid provincial government wage restraints.
the protest at saint vincent hospital was one of more than 50 planned across ontario this summer as cupe’s ontario council of hospital unions and seiu healthcare return to bargaining with the ontario hospital association early next month.
“hospital workers have held the line for patients and the people of ottawa,” michael hurley, president of cupe’s ontario council of hospital unions, said in a release ahead of a planned speech at the rally.
“they sacrificed to do that and they were proud and grateful to be able to help. they did not expect a reward. but a cut to their modest real wages and the gutting of their contracts is not acceptable.”
the unions are negotiating a new provincial contract for nearly 70,000 hospital workers while fighting bill 124 , the ontario government’s public sector wage restraint bill. passed into law in november 2019, it limits total wage and benefit increases to one per cent across the public sector.
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cupe said that it limits front-line health workers hailed as heroes during the ongoing pandemic to a raise less than a third the rate of inflation and limits their ability to negotiate added mental health supports like psychotherapy and post-traumatic stress counselling.
hurley called on the ontario government to reverse the wage cap, as the british government has recently done for national health service workers. he called on hospitals to address workers’ priorities including pandemic safety measures and violence and take concessions, including language around seniority and retirement packages, off the table.
in a statement to this newspaper earlier this summer, a spokesperson for minister of finance peter bethlenfalvy noted that nurses and other public sector employees will continue to receive seniority or performance-based wage increases well above one per cent.
the government is “incredibly grateful” for the health-care workers’ “critical role” throughout the pandemic with pandemic pay one way the government has recognized that contribution, the spokesperson said.
with files from elizabeth payne
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