Skip to main content

"We told ya so!"

A darn good letter on the McGuinty government's  introduction of the LHINs from local CUPE hospital activist, Paul MacDonald. It was published yesterday in the Toronto Star . 

Paul -- yes -- public sector union and community activists did do a pretty fair job campaigning on the problems associated with the LHIN model, and did so pretty much right from the get go.  And YES, it is nice to see that at least some of those problems are becoming more apparent to a broader section of the population now.

So a thanks to all the local union and community activists who got the ball rolling! -- Doug



LHIN system should be scrapped; Secret health unit meetings 'illegal,' Aug. 11

Toronto Star, Sat Aug 14 2010 Page: IN7 Section: Letter

Re. Secret health unit meetings

'illegal,' Aug. 11

Not only should these secret LHIN board meetings be deemed illegal, the entire system of LHINs should also be deemed illegal.

When an unelected, unaccountable board of overpaid bureaucrats, accountable to the health minister and themselves, decides to close hospitals in private - when in the recent past this was done in the open at board meetings - it smacks of irresponsibility, elitism and sneaky underhandedness.

Prior to the inception of this mess, public sector unions and coalitions of health care groups warned of the inclusiveness and secretivity of the LHIN boards. All I can say in that respect now is, "we told ya so!"

Paul MacDonald, Etobicoke

© 2010 Torstar Corporation

Length: 116 words; Ad Value: $2,832; Circulation: 641,445







Comments? dallan@cupe.ca
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Too many public sector workers in Ontario?

Opponents of public services often try to portray the public sector as having grown disproportionately.  In fact, since 1976, the number of public sector employees has not quite kept pace with the population. In 1976, the number of public sector employees in Ontario  as reported by Statistics Canada averaged 830,800.  By 2012, the number had increased to 1,330,700 -- a 60.2% increase.  That sounds like significant growth -- true. But the population has increased  from 8,413,779 in 1976 to 13,505,900 in 2012, a 60.5% increase.   In other words, population growth has run slightly ahead of the growth in public sector employment.     In 1976, close to 10% of the population worked in the public sector.  It stayed pretty much this way until the Mike Harris government came to power when it dipped below 9%.  It returned close to the historical range in the last six years or so, declining in 2012 to below the 1976 averag...
16 comments
Read more

Huge cuts in public sector wages predicted

The Ontario Financial Accountability Office (FAO)   says  that, with inflation, real wages in the public sector will decline 11.3% over the three year period  2021/2 - 2023/4 .  This would radically deepen the trend towards lower wages during the last ten years.   The FAO reports that since 2011, the average annual salary for the Ontario public sector employees (defined here as employees of schools, colleges, provincial government, provincial agencies, and hospitals) has increased by $10,385   -- or 1.6 per cent on average annually.  This is the lowest increase of all the sectors and lower than inflation, which averaged 1.8 per cent per year. Over the ten years that would be about a 2% pay cut.   The FAO reports that wage settlements were the lowest in the provincial public sector over the last decade:   Hospital Wages Especially Challenged: The FAO predicts hospital wages will increase even less than in the public sector  -- just ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The hospital crisis: No capacity, no plan, no end

While Canada has achieved universal public healthcare coverage, that does not mean conservative forces have given up trying to erode that coverage and expand corporate care where it does not currently exist. The battle has become particularly intense in Ontario under the Ford Progressive Conservative government, which is implementing serious cuts to the level of care and moving to bring in for-profit mini-hospitals. Inadequate Staffing.   Less and less of hospital spending is on staff.   Employee compensation as a share of hospital expenditures has consistently shrunk in Ontario. This is not some immutable law of hospital development.  It is in stark contrast with the rest of Canada, where compensation has become a larger share and now accounts for 67.1%. Hospitals in provinces other than Ontario now have 18 percent more staff per capita than hospitals in Ontario. Overall, if Ontario had the same staffing capacity as the other provinces and territories, there would be another...
Post a Comment
Read more