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"Reopening" of the Economy and Workers' Right to Safety at Work Serious Concerns in OntarioAcross Canada, after more than two months of lockdown, stay-at-home, closure of all non-essential business and other measures intended to stem the transmission of COVID-19 infection, we are entering round two -- reopening while still under conditions of a pandemic.
We are continually assured by the various levels of government that "reopening" is being guided by the best advice of science and public health as the priority. But it is simply not so. Nor are the measures called for by frontline workers and their organizations as to what is required now, and going forward taken seriously. They are marginalized, sidelined, talked over and dismissed. Ontario for example officially launched "reopening" measures on May 19. The Ontario government says its "Framework for Reopening our Province" lays out its approach to restarting the economy, which it says incorporates public health recommendations. Fact is the decision to begin to "reopen" Ontario was not in compliance with the minimum criteria the Premier had set only a matter of weeks prior, i.e. a consistent trend of "flattening the curve" of new COVID-19 infections. It was not so when the Premier made his "reopening" announcement and a full ten days later, Ontario was still reporting 300-400 new cases a day! Ontario is still far from testing up to its capacity for COVID-19 infection and by decision does not even test asymptomatic people. One infectious disease specialist, Zain Chagla, at St. Joseph's Healthcare in Hamilton and an associate professor at McMaster University said recently that for Ontario to be on par with South Korea, would require additional investment "in the orders of tens of millions of dollars to get that testing capacity up and running." The same is true on the national level. The
president of the Canadian Medical Association, Dr.
Sandy Buchman, recently said the country isn't
prepared for a possible second wave of COVID-19.
He said the public health system is "breaking
down" because of personal protective equipment
(PPE) shortages and physician fatigue -- and the
consequences could be catastrophic if the COVID-19
caseload surges in the fall. Buchman said there's
an "urgent need" to strengthen the public health
system's capacity to conduct more testing and
contact tracing. Nurses' organizations had been warning provincial authorities since January that the public health system was severely unprepared for a surge in demand that a COVID-19 pandemic would create. They pointed to staffing shortages in long-term care facilities and the need for personal protective equipment in hospitals and long-term care homes. These frontline workers still don't have the protective equipment they need. Round Two is no different. At the "reopening" press conference, Ontario's Minister of Transport Caroline Mulroney talked claptrap about public transit being "critical to supporting the economy ... as the province begins to reopen" and how "the health and well-being of all transit workers and passengers is a top priority." But these are empty phrases without concrete measures to protect the public health and safety when using transit.
So like it or not Round Two of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic is underway. Science is not the guide to action for the decision makers. Working people are marginalized from being the decision makers. Creating conditions for the activation of the human factor social consciousness, putting working people front and centre in working out how the problems such as coming out of lockdown pose themselves, working out and implementing measures to enable society to move forward, protecting the health and well-being of the people, their economy, their society, is the order of the day to enable us to move beyond the "old normal" which has been revealed by the pandemic as a complete disaster.
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There are
appropriate warnings to practice social
distancing, rigorous hand washing and so forth,
which obviously need to be stated and continuously
reinforced, because the politicians making these
pronouncements are seen to flagrantly disregard
the rules which they themselves set, such as
restricting even family members from visiting
one's home and strictly enforcing no more than
five people beyond a family household grouping
getting together.
Carlos Santos,
President of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local
113 representing transit workers in Toronto and
York Region, for example, expressed regret that
the provincial government did not address the need
for social investments to keep public transit safe
during round two. He asked "how will
municipalities pay for additional measures to
protect public transit workers and riders? Without
emergency funding from the province and federal
government, it will be next to impossible to
maintain proper service levels on the Toronto
Transit Commission (TTC) to handle increased
ridership and ensure physical distancing." In
Toronto some 1,200 transit workers have been laid
off and service reduced during the lockdown.
"Toronto needs the province and the federal
government to step up and provide the TTC with
emergency funding," Santos said.