Ontario hospital central bargaining begins again

OPSEU has announced that after eight days of bargaining with the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) for their central paramedical bargaining group, they are now preparing to take unresolved issues to arbitration. OPSEU notes that due to government policy, the OHA could not agree to any item put forward by the union if there was a cost attached to it. Some other modest issues have been settled.

Arbitration dates have been set for June 11-12, with employer and union responses to submissions to be completed by June 28. By agreement, the arbitration panel chaired by William Kaplan will issue its decision by mid-September 2011, i.e. before the fall provincial election.

The bargaining process is still continuing between the hospitals and the Ontario Nurses Association. ONA has completed four days of mediation with the Ontario Hospital Association, meeting on March 8, 15, 16 and 17, 2011 for its Registered Nurses group. The parties have been assisted by Kevin Burkett, a respected mediator who worked on the ONA -Hospital 2008-11 settlement. ONA says the "mediation featured a lot of discussion – some constructive. During a difficult four days of mediation, we have narrowed the gap with the expertise of Mr. Burkett and have offered additional dates to mediate in April."

SEIU's central agreement expires in October.

CUPE has a four year agreement that expires September 2013.

More on bargaining in Ontario tomorrow.

dallan@cupe.ca

Comments

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...

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 ...

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...

Defend Public Healthcare

Search This Blog