Fred Hahn is the President of CUPE Ontario,
which represents over 280,000 workers in health care, municipalities,
school boards, social services and universities.
Workers' Forum:
Ontario hospital workers who have been on the front lines protecting
people's health and safety in the conditions
of the pandemic are now facing concessionary demands from the Ontario
government and the Ontario Hospital Association. How do you assess this?
Fred Hahn: Actually the Ontario Hospital Association has tabled pages and pages of concessions.
During the pandemic, under the emergency orders, most of our
members' collective agreements, not just those of hospital workers,
were suspended. Employers were given carte blanche to reassign people,
to change their shifts, to not pay overtime. It looks as if, based on
some of the concessions that have been tabled, hospital employers like
those things and want to make them permanent. The concessions they want
are about job security, job posting provisions, shift requirements,
overtime, many things that have been in the collective agreements for a
long time but with which employers did not have to comply for months.
It appears that employers are trying to make changes which our
hospital workers and those in the Service Employees International
Union are not going to agree to. The emergency measures literally gave
complete control to the employer. The employer could tell a worker that
they would have to work 12 days in a row with no overtime
payment, that they would be working in that location over there where
they had never worked before. Employers were empowered to do such
things and much more.
In
our collective agreements we have job posting language that makes it
clear when you apply for a job what the shifts are, where you work, that
if you work extra you get overtime. If there is a reorganization of the
work there are abundant procedures spelled out and there are job
security provisions that relate to reorganizations. These are important.
The employer wants to make changes to some of those provisions, putting
limits on workers' rights. All of their proposals are for concessions,
and our members are not going to agree to them.
It is insulting to our workers. This is something that we have
experienced in every sector. This round is about hospital workers whose
central bargaining has just started. But we have seen this in municipal
bargaining. We have seen it in social service bargaining. In every case
in which employers have had enhanced rights in the pandemic, they are
trying to bargain concessions to keep them.
I am happy to tell you that in every single round of bargaining in
any sector in which an employer has tried to impose concessions we have
successfully defeated them and we will do so in the hospital sector as
well.
We have an additional problem in the current situation because of
specific legislation passed by the Ford Conservatives, Bill 124, that
imposes a restriction on collective bargaining, that dictates that
increases in compensation must not exceed one per cent per year. This
is not just about wages. All compensation is included in that one per
cent.
For example, hospital workers are seeking improvements to language
around personal protective equipment and safety at work. Those
improvements are considered a cost. According to this law, if you
bargain for enhanced safety measures that cost money, that would reduce
your wage increase. Enhanced safety at work, enhanced staffing
levels -- which is a real challenge in health care -- these
are also considered costs that fall within the one percent.
As another example, we are trying to negotiate paid sick days for
part-time and casual workers. That alone, according to the government
officials, is way more than one per cent. That is what the employer has
said.
People
are shocked when we tell them what is in the law. That is why it is so
important that we are organizing, not just working out bargaining
strategies, but that we get the word out, that we inform the public and
make everyone aware of what this law means.
One of our most important demands is that Bill 124 be repealed
because it is an attack against all public sector workers. In the
meantime, during this round of bargaining, we are demanding that the
bill be suspended. The government made changes many times during the
pandemic, including providing for pandemic pay that was over $1 an
hour. They did that by regulation so they can do it again in this
negotiation.
WF: Do you want to add anything in conclusion?
FH: After this year and a half of
the pandemic, we are seeing a change in our members, in our neighbours
and in workers generally. Workers, having been through the pandemic
where they could literally lose their lives, are saying that enough is
enough, that we have to do things differently in our workplaces.
Collectively and
individually, they realize their worth and that they deserve more. They
do not want to go back to conditions where their health, including
their mental health, are not looked after, where wages are insufficient
and they are not treated with respect.
For example, for more than a decade our union has spoken out about
long-term care, against privatization, about the need to get rid of
profit in seniors' care. Now there is much more awareness about this
problem, more energy. Our job is to channel that energy and realize the
possibility of bringing about significant changes.
This article was published in
Voluem [volume] Number [issue] - September 15, 2021 - No. 83
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2021/Articles/WO08834.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
