|
September 13, 2021 - No. 82
Quebec Government Decrees Will Exacerbate the Crisis
in Health and Social Services
Only the Workers Can Decide the Conditions Needed to Keep
the Population Safe
- Pierre Chénier -
Demonstration
by Quebec health care professionals in Cowansville, August 30, 2021
against the silencing of their voices on their conditions of work and of
patients' care.
Ontario
• Hospital Workers Conclude a Summer of Rallies in Defence of Rights
• Ontario Lab Technologists Require Assistance Immediately
Affirming the Right to Education in the Context of the Fourth Wave
• Discussion on Concrete Measures to Uphold Health, Safety and Rights as Schools Re-open
Quebec Government Decrees Will Exacerbate the Crisis
in Health and Social Services
- Pierre Chénier -
On September 7, the Quebec government announced that COVID-19
vaccination will now be mandated for all health and social services
workers, and that all workers who have not been double-vaccinated by
October 15 could be suspended without pay. They will be required to
provide proof of full vaccination. If they do
not, they will be reassigned to other duties, which seems impossible
since all workers in the sectors are subject to the government's
decision, or they will be sent home without pay. Volunteers will also
be sent home if they do not have proof of double vaccination by October
15. Visitors will be required to show their immunization passport
or they will not have access to patients.
Health Minister
Christian Dubé said during the announcement that "we cannot
accept that there are workers who put vulnerable people at risk."
Premier François Legault denies his government's responsibility
for the untenable situation facing Quebec nurses and health care
workers, which has led to a massive resignation of nurses and all kinds
of physical and mental health problems among staff. He made the
irrational statement that the announced measure will be combined with
an effort to bring nurses back into the system, including retired
nurses.
Workers Forum points out that this new measure of the Quebec
government will only add to the incoherence, anarchy and chaos in the
Quebec health system. Instead of taking up its social responsibility to
adequately fund and staff the healthcare system, end all privatization
of services forthwith and provide universally accessible testing
for COVID-19, the government takes all of this off the table and once
again self-righteously attacks health care workers. These are the
people who literally hold the system together.
Health care unions have argued that the blatant irrationality and
disrespect expressed in this measure will drive more workers out of the
system, especially nurses, who are fed up with the ministerial orders
that have been passed over the past year and a half by the government.
All the ministerial orders attack the dignity of nurses and other
frontline workers who serve the public and deny their negotiated
working conditions.
It is expected that if the government maintains its decision, even more nurses will leave, including double-vaccinated nurses.
 The
irrationality of the decision can also be seen in the fact that
vaccination is presented as the ultimate measure to protect the
population, not as one of the measures, and that it is accompanied by
so-called "flexibility" measures that the government has decreed. In
particular, health care workers oppose the recent government decision
to
weaken infection prevention and control rules in health care
institutions. They are particularly concerned with the end of the
designations of hot, warm or cold zones which grouped patients
according to whether they had COVID-19 or not and according to its
severity, with the staff themselves working only in the one zone to
which they were
assigned. Staff will now go back to moving throughout the hospital,
without quarantine or other preventive measures. In emergency
departments we are back to the situation of having patients with
COVID-19 not isolated but in beds in hallways with only a curtain
separating them from uninfected patients who may be extremely
susceptible due to
other conditions.
Workers also report that workers with no symptoms of COVID-19 are no
longer being tested after being in contact with a patient who tests
positive.
While vaccinating the population is
an integral part of modern medical protocols, as has been the case
throughout the neo-liberal anti-social offensive, these measures are
being
mandated without informed public discussion and without the consent of
the workers who deliver the services. Pro and con positions are imposed
to divide the population while alternatives which would protect the
population and unite the people are deliberately left off the agenda.
It is up to the workers and their collectives to discuss and decide
what measures are needed to protect themselves and the public in health
care facilities. They are the ones who defend the public interest and
they are also the ones who have earned the respect and the confidence
of the public by their dedication and courage under the most
difficult conditions. This applies to the current mandates as well --
what to do with them is up to the workers themselves.
Ontario
On September 10, hospital workers from across Ontario rallied in front
of the Ontario Hospital Association's (OHA) head office in downtown
Toronto. The OHA's head office was chosen as the location for the rally
because over 70,000 hospital workers, members of OCHU/CUPE (Ontario
Council of Hospital Unions/Canadian Union of
Public Employees) and SEIU Healthcare (Service Employees International
Union) are attempting to negotiate the renewal of their collective
agreements with OHA.
The theme of the rally was Respect Us! Protect Us! Pay Us! and No To Concessions!
The rally was the culmination of over 60 actions that were organized by
hospital workers across Ontario during the summer in defence of their
rights and dignity.
 Leaders
of the two unions and frontline workers spoke. They made the point that
Ontario health care workers are protecting the health and the safety of
the public and that since the start of the pandemic more than 24,000
health care workers contracted COVID-19 and 24 died. They spoke about
the exhaustion and mental health problems that
are affecting so many of them as a result of their untenable working
conditions. This makes the Ford government's provocation unacceptable.
In 2019, the Ford government passed Bill 124 which dictates that
total compensation for a broad section of workers in the public sector,
including Crown agencies, school boards, universities and colleges,
hospitals, non-profit long-term care homes, cannot exceed one per cent
per year for three years. It also covers Children's Aid societies,
social service agencies and the electricity and energy sectors.
Hospital workers estimate that with this wage cap policy the Ford
government is actually cutting their wages. A wage increase of one
percent would mean an actual cut of nearly $1,500 this year alone when
inflation, currently well over three per cent, is taken into account.
But the cap on compensation impacts far more than wages. Included in
the one per cent is everything that government and employers consider a
cost, including any improvement in vacations, leaves of all kinds,
health benefits and more. It impacts workers' access to counseling and
mental health supports that are urgently needed in conditions
of the pandemic.
Participants in the rally made it clear that they consider this to
be a violation of their right to negotiate wages they deem acceptable.
It is also an insult to workers who have made and continue to make
great personal sacrifices to care for and protect the public in the
conditions of COVID-19. 
Showing utmost insensitivity to the plight of the workers, a
spokesperson for the president of the Treasury Board wrote, in an email
to CBC News, that it is "inaccurate to suggest" that Bill 124 caps
wages at one per cent annually, as "Ontario's public-sector employees
will still be able to receive salary increases for seniority,
performance, or
increased qualifications."
"Bill 124 is designed to protect public sector jobs and vital
front-line services, which are essential in our fight against
COVID-19," he also wrote. "We believe this is a fair, consistent, and
time-limited approach that will enable us to protect front- line jobs
and workers."
Wage progressions in collective agreements have nothing to do with
the basic wages of workers and do not apply to all of them. The very
idea that attacking the rights and the conditions of those who deliver
the services is protecting services and workers is irrational and a
further provocation. It shows that the Ford government's only response
to the problems of the health care system is to impose further chaos,
increase the attacks on workers' rights and open up the system
to further privatization.
The anger of workers increased, speakers said, when the OHA
negotiators came to the bargaining table to meet with the union
bargaining committee and presented concessionary demands including
attacks on seniority rights and pensions and others that would permit
increased contracting out of their work.
Throughout the summer, health care workers all across Ontario
organized actions to present their stands to the public and explain
what is actually going on in the health care system. They are speaking
out and mobilizing public opinion for a solution to the crisis in
health care that favours the people.
Ontario laboratory technologists are speaking out about their
working conditions and the crisis in the health care system which has
been exacerbated by the pandemic.
In speaking to CTV News on September 11, Michelle Hoad, president of
the Medical Laboratory Professionals' Association of Ontario, made it
clear that immediate assistance is needed. She reported that 92 per
cent of lab technologists are working overtime and 97 per cent of labs
are short-staffed. Over 66 per cent have not been able to take
vacation. The association also found that 87 per cent of their members
are experiencing burnout and almost half, 42 per cent, are
contemplating leaving their jobs. On top of that 41 per cent will be
eligible to retire within the next two to four years.
To add to the crisis, U.S. companies are offering signing bonuses of $10,000 to $20,000 to entice workers to leave Ontario.
The association has made a concrete proposal to the Ontario
government on how to solve the problem. They are calling for a $3.6
million investment over three years to train more lab technologists by
creating clinical placements for students. They are calling for an
investment of $2.6 million over three years for labs in rural remote
areas in
Northern Ontario. Lastly they ask for the province to develop a
simulation laboratory, a training laboratory where students get
hands-on experience, focussing on rural, remote and northern
communities.
The pandemic and the government's response has exposed and
exacerbated problems in the health care system that require solutions.
By speaking out about their working conditions and making their
demands, health care workers are defending not only their own rights
but the rights of all.
Affirming the Right to Education in the Context of the Fourth Wave
On August 29, 2021 Education is a Right Podcast held a virtual forum to
discuss what is on the minds of educators, parents and students across
Canada with the opening of school amidst a fourth wave of the pandemic
and ongoing vaccine rollouts. Participants attended from Alberta,
Ontario and Quebec and included
elementary, secondary and post-secondary educators, students and
parents.
 The
main theme was how to take up social responsibility in the schools and
communities as schools re-open. Participants received a presentation on
the guidelines for safe schools being put forward by Health Canada and
then discussed the situation in their parts of the country and how they
are planning to deal with the reality in the class. This
was followed by a session on how to ensure that Orange Shirt Day 2021
(September 30) is made an important project for the youth in every
class so that they are part of truth and reconciliation, and it is not
left up to chance.
The forum ended with discussion on the federal election and the
importance of involving the youth in getting their own experience with
the political process despite the terrible timing of the election.
A key thread throughout the three-hour plenary was the importance of
educators taking their own initiatives to involve themselves and their
students in working out how to uphold the health and safety of their
class and their families and by extension their community. This was
also the case with Orange Shirt Day and the federal election: it is
important to take up our own organizing and initiative so that the
pandemic doesn't lead to either nothing being organized or things that
just come from on high without the participation of the people.
Three decisions were taken by those in attendance:
1) that the proceedings of the conference be published as podcasts in the months of September and October
2) that in September episodes be dedicated to Orange Shirt Day
3)
that participants get back together virtually over the December break
to review what has taken place and prepare for the next phase of the
school year.
The opening presentation on guidelines for the re-opening of schools
and the discussion have now been published as podcasts here:
Episode 108: Planning for the 2021-22 school year in the context of the fourth wave
Episode 109: Discussion on a Safe September
(To access articles individually click on the black headline.)
PDF
PREVIOUS
ISSUES | HOME
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: office@cpcml.ca
|
