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Unifor is uniting with two of Ontario’s largest health care unions, the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (OCHU/CUPE) and SEIU Healthcare, to push for respect at the bargaining table for 75,000 hospital workers.
“Together we are going to resist concessions that the employers have been seeking from mostly women workers who earn modest wages and deserve more respect,” said Katha Fortier, Assistant to the National President.
More than 200 health care members, including nursing staff, personal support workers, porters, administrative staff and dietary, housekeeping and trades staff, who work at 160 Ontario hospitals met in Toronto on March 26 and 27 to form a unique alliance to bargain together. Key bargaining issues for the three unions include an increasing workload and high rates of workplace violence.
“We are told our work is not as valued as other health care workers and we are expected to do more and more with less and work in an underfunded and overcrowded system, causing stress and exhaustion,” said Kari Jefford, President Unifor local 229, representing 4,500 workers in long term care facilities, ambulance services, community care, and clinics in Northern Ontario.
The joint campaign will be launched on airwaves next week with a television commercial airing throughout April, as well as a province-wide solidarity action on April 11, with workers wearing #TogetherForRespect stickers. The coalition told members that mobilization efforts will escalate if progress is not achieved during negotiations.
“It has been awhile since we have formed this kind of alliance but we need to send a powerful message to the Province and to the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA), who negotiate and speak on behalf of many hospitals,” said Andy Savela, Director of Health Care.
The hospitals have reached agreements for paramedical staff, under the prevailing public sector pattern, but they refuse to use that same pattern for hospital workers represented by the three unions.
Photos of the event can be found on the Together For Respect Facebook page.
