Health Care

They hugged. They cried. They shared stories.

More than 100 Covid heroes met in-person for the first time since the pandemic began in 2020.

Health care workers gathered at Unifor’s Family Education Centre in Port Elgin, Ontario. on June 9, 2022 for Unifor’s three-day Health Care Conference, to discuss bargaining strategies and challenges facing their workplaces and their sector.

In celebration of Personal Support Worker Day on May 19, 2022 Unifor salutes the contributions of the thousands of Unifor members who work as Personal Support Workers (PSWs) in Ontario, and Continuing Care Assistants (CCAs) in Nova Scotia.

THUNDER BAY– Long-term care workers, families of residents, community members banded together for the Thunder Bay LTC Day of Action.

“Our heroes in health care are burnt out and struggling to keep up in long-term care homes,” said Katha Fortier, Assistant to Unifor’s National President. “PSWs and other workers who have worked through what can only be described as a humanitarian crisis are leaving the industry in droves. Fortier continues” Poor compensation, lack of full time work and COVID-19 have just made a bad situation worse.”

More than 100 members gathered in Thunder Bay on May 13-14 for the annual Northern Ontario Leadership Meeting to strategize on how to best organize and elect progressive politicians in the upcoming Ontario provincial elections. 

Unifor continues to stand with workers across the country and around the globe in recognizing and celebrating the outstanding contributions of nurses during National Nursing Week. Nurses across the nation need our support and solidarity like never before.

“As a union we need provincial governments to immediately correct this and other wrongdoings of the past and invest in health care,” said Assistant to the National President Katha Fortier, who is also a nurse and is responsible for overseeing health care at Unifor.

Napanee, ON – Unifor is outraged after members returned to work following a nearly 6-month long strike at Napanee’s Lennox and Addington Interval House, only to be wrongfully terminated.

“The women of LAIH went on strike to improve their working conditions and the services that they deliver. To be met with these unfair and unjustified terminations upon return to work is shameful behaviour from an employer that claims to espouse equity and justice,” said Katha Fortier, Unifor Assistant to the National President.

As part of ongoing efforts to bargain better outcomes for patient care and hospital staff, health care unions launch television ads aimed at the OHA

TORONTO, ON – Three unions negotiating with the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) to resolve the ongoing hospital staffing crisis, job safety concerns and pandemic-related mental health supports, today launched a province-wide television advertising blitz to fix the mess and save hospital care in Ontario.

Workers at Chatham Kent Health Alliance in southwestern Ontario have voted overwhelmingly to join Unifor.

“These workers join with thousands of health care workers who are already part of Unifor, and can now draw on that depth of experience and knowledge to negotiate better working conditions,” said Unifor Secretary-Treasurer Lana Payne. “Welcome to Unifor.”

Voting took place electronically from March 30 to April 1, 2022. A majority of the 519 eligible workers voted in favour of joining Unifor, leaving their previous union, CLAC.

This opinion piece first appeared in Saltwire Media on April 1, 2022

In 2014, then-Premier Stephen McNeil’s throne speech set the tone for what would be his eight-year term as leader of the province — and the tone was decidedly aggressive, anti-worker and specifically anti-union.

The Liberal leader was no friend of public sector unions, delivered a knockout blow to the province’s film sector, and eliminated the Graduate Retention Rebate, making it harder for young workers to remain in the province.