Union Calls for End to Dividend Payments to Long-Term Care Shareholders
Picket, May 26, 2020 outside Guildwood, long-term care home run by
Extendicare, where 29 people have died of COVID-19.
On May 28, the Service Employees International
Union (SEIU) Healthcare, which represents over 60,000 frontline
healthcare workers in Ontario, issued a statement demanding an end to
long-term care shareholder dividends after the monopoly Extendicare
revealed at its Annual General Meeting (AGM) that it only spent
$300,000 of its own money to deal with COVID-19, while distributing
over $10,000,000 to shareholders during the pandemic.
 SEIU reported
that at the Extendicare AGM it was revealed the corporation incurred
about $700,000 in incremental expenses related to COVID-19 measures, of
which $400,000 was covered by the province. When asked if a pandemic
risk assessment was ever conducted after the 2007 SARS Commission
Report, the President and CEO said "our risk plans did not anticipate
this kind of behaviour from an infectious agent."
SEIU points out that even after 80 people died in
Extendicare facilities after contracting COVID-19, the company would
not commit to cutting the 8 per cent, $10,000,000 dividend paid to
shareholders.
SEIU Healthcare President Sharleen Stewart said:
"What I heard today from Extendicare was both alarming and an
affirmation of a truly ugly long-term care system. Residents are
getting sick and dying. Workers are getting sick and dying. Enough is
enough.
"Corporate dividends from companies like
Extendicare, Chartwell, and Sienna, can no longer be a part of the
delivery of health care equation. SEIU Healthcare will be calling on
all governments to stop giving money to health care corporations that
pay out rich dividends to private shareholders."
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 19 - May 30, 2020
Article Link:
Union Calls for End to Dividend Payments to Long-Term Care Shareholders
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
|
