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SEIU Healthcare, CUPE, and Unifor to hold joint media conference with frontline healthcare worker on August 17 – 10 a.m.
Union leaders from the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario, SEIU Healthcare, and Unifor will be joined by a frontline healthcare worker at a media conference on Tuesday to discuss the worsening health human resource crisis in Ontario that is leaving seniors and patients without the staffing levels they need.
On August 12, the Ford government announced a program that would incentivize new and recently hired personal support workers (PSWs) and nurses with up to $10,000 to work in retirement homes—an almost entirely private, for-profit system. While the program is aimed at attracting new workers to the profession, it ignores the hard work and sacrifice of the frontline healthcare workers who have spent the past 18 months risking their lives, many of whom are leaving the healthcare sector at an alarming rate. The incentive also ignores those working in hospital, long-term care and homecare settings.
The three unions are calling on the Ford government to meet with them to establish an urgent and comprehensive strategy that not only helps recruit healthcare workers, but also retains the ones serving on the frontline today.
WHO: Sharleen Stewart, President, SEIU Healthcare
Candace Rennick, Secretary-Treasurer, CUPE Ontario
Katha Fortier, Assistant to the National President, Unifor
Personal Support Worker (PSW)
WHERE: Virtual media conference, ZOOM link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88948700947
WHEN: Tuesday, August 17, 2021 – 10 a.m.
For more information please contact:
Corey Johnson, SEIU Healthcare Communications, @email, 416-529-8909
Hamid Osman, Unifor Communications, @email, 647-448-2823
Aline Patcheva, CUPE Communications, @email, 514-825-4443
