TAKING LEGAL ACTION IN ONTARIO

Health care contract talks are also taking place in central Canada. But unlike Alberta, Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government didn’t need to use threats to keep wages down during collective bargaining.

Instead, the government has tried to put every obstacle in the way of fair settlements – including passing the controversial Bill 124 – to stymy efforts at the table.

Since the bill was passed in November 2019, general wage increases across most of the public sector were limited to one per cent annually, impacting 780,000 workers. Health care workers had to picket against Bill 124 combine the overall value of annual general wage increases and lump-sum payments that Alberta Health Services provides.

Recognizing this law was in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 10 Ontario unions came together and launched a legal fight to overturn Ford’s anti-worker legislation.

Bill 124 was ruled unconstitutional by the courts last December, and labour now sees real opportunities at the bargaining table, but it will not come without a struggle with Ford’s Progressive Conservative government.

“We’re sitting across the table from an employer that is backed to the hilt by Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservatives – a government that has little respect for public health care or the workers who provide the care,” says Durning.

Fifty-five thousand school board workers were forced to strike illegally last fall, winning a 3.6 per cent wage increase, raising the depressed wage pattern.

However, the province is appealing the court’s decision on Bill 124 and the Ford government is trying everything it can to depress wages, so this fight is far from over.

In the end, the damage done by the Progressive Conservative government’s law in its first three years has kept wages for Ontario’s health care workers lower than what they could have achieved through free collective bargaining.

Still, looking ahead, Ontario health care workers are even more determined to get better settlements.