Defend Public Healthcare

As expected, the McGuinty government has made a long series of concession demands at the OPSEU "OPS" negotiations, where OPSEU is bargaining on behalf of 36,000 provincial civil servants. Here is what OPSEU saw from the government on the first day: A two-year agreement. A two-year pay freeze. Creation of a new step on the wage grid 3 per cent lower than the lowest step. Reduce sick time payments after six days from 75 per cent to 66 and two-thirds per cent. Implement two unpaid days for more than six continuous absences. Ability to top up sick leave only to 75 per cent and only with vacation credits. Change benefits to a maximum annual dollar limit for all services instead of service specific caps. Increased use of temporary employees and consultants. Gutting Job Security (Article 20 and Appendix 40) Increase full-time conversion unclassified employees from 18 months to 24 months. Elimination of termination pay under Reasonable Efforts Elimina

The Progressive Conservatives have  -- effectively -- ruled out reaching an agreement with the McGuinty government on a legislative public sector "wage freeze". Peter Shurman Legislative Photo While complaining that the Dalton McGuinty government has not pursued negotiations with the PCs over a legislated wage freeze, PC point-man Peter Shurman  let slip that one of the demands the PCs put to the Liberals was that the government would have to guarantee that whoever succeeds McGuinty as Liberal leader would also impose whatever deal the PCs and the McGuinty government worked out. That's an impossible promise for McGuinty to make. Once someone else is in charge, she (or he) will be in charge -- and there's nothing McGunity can do about that. He's a lame duck leader with zero authority after the (fast approaching) leadership convention January 25-26. The PC demand is unworkable.  The reality is both the PCs and McGuinty have very limited options -- no one

Jane Meadus of the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly says that some seniors are being pushed out of hospital too soon under the province's Home First policy, the Ottawa Citizen reports. "Patient safety is at high risk...While many patients will do well at home with extra home-care services, there are many who are too sick to be cared for at home." Some elderly patients are being "forced" to go home to recuperate without being given the option to apply for long-term care and waiting for a bed while in hospital. And that might violate their legal rights.  In other cases, people are being pressured to enter private retirement homes, which can cost $5,000 a month and might not be able to provide the care needed, Meadus told the  Citizen . "There have already been cases where people have died due to being forced into them while really requiring long-term care." ACE has received about 250 complaints from across Ontario in the past year. "Disc

Negotiations between the government and Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF) have broken off.   OSSTF vice-president,  Harvey Bischof  said  that the provincial government walked away from the bargaining table, leaving the union little choice but to step up their efforts. OSSTF is now planning job action at 20 school boards. OSSTF president Ken Coran added , “It blows me away that they ended discussions when there still were suggestions to be explored — we felt close on a number of issues." Ontario Education Minister Laurel Broten called proposed OSSTF job action “disappointing" and suggested that negotiations at the provincial level are no longer possible.  Broten also said that under Bill 115, the province has “the tools to act and will fully explore these options” as teachers begin their job actions. New Options Meanwhile, Gerard Kennedy has declared he will run to replace McGuinty as the Liberal leader, and has suggested he would take a different pa

September was a big month for collective agreement settlements in Ontario and the wage settlements fell, according to the government of Ontario .  Public sector settlements for 36,348 workers saw annual average wage increases of 0.6%.  This occurred despite higher increases for over 11,000 of these public sector workers: Two police settlements covering over 1,000 employees saw 3% annual wage increases,  Two other municipal settlements covering almost 1,000 workers got 1.9% increases, Agreements covering 4,500 academics at four universities got settlements in the 1.2% to 2.0% range, and  Three hospital settlements covering 4,800 workers simply caught up to the CUPE central hospital wage pattern achieved in 2009 (2%). Most of the other settlements in the broader public sector saw zip over their term.  Despite this, the Liberal party saw fit to call for legislation ( The Protecting Public Services Act ) at the end of September that would have stopped free collective bargainin

The announcements of new "home and community care" funding (which started last week) continue, this time for the Ottawa area. Home care activists First the good news.  The $7.15 million announced for the Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) amounts to 3.74% increase over the CCAC budget set out in 2011-12 Champlain LHIN performance agreement . The Hamilton-Niagara CCAC increase announced last week was 3.25% .   So this is a little higher, albeit short of the 4% home and community care funding increase promised by the government. Moreover, the overall announced increase of $11.1 million falls well short of the 4% increase for home and community care announced by the government.  If you add together all the items in 2011-12 Champlain LHIN accountability agreement that easily fit in to “community and home care” (i.e. the CCAC, Community Support Services, Assisted Living Services, Community Health Centre, and Community Mental Health line items), the total is $357

After the architects of the Liberal attack on collective bargaining (Premier McGuinty and Finance Minister Dwight Duncan) announced their exit from provincial politics, the first, very modest, move away from their policy has appeared. Kathleen Wynne The Globe reports that leadership candidate Kathleen Wynne says she will not introduce broader public sector legislation: “She distanced herself from Premier Dalton McGuinty, who has spent much of this year fighting with the province’s teachers and doctors, by saying she would not pursue his plans to introduce legislation that would freeze wages for public-sector workers for two years.” Albeit, they quote her saying: “My hope is we would see more negotiated settlements, and that the imposition of collective agreements wouldn’t be necessary. It would be moot.” McGunity had unveiled (but had not introduced to the legislature) legislation in late September that would have stopped free collective bargaining in the broader pub