RISE UP FOR HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES WORKERS

by Alain Michaud, Director, Social Services Division

employees during COVID 19. This is great news for our members, and sets an example for all private-sector retirement residences.

Work that is crucial as ever

In 2022, health care workers in retirement homes, hospitals and all other kinds of care facilities continued to wage a front-line battle, with heavy casualties. Not just COVID, but also other respiratory viruses including influenza, have overwhelmed health and social services. The resulting staffing shortfall is bad news: according to Statistics Canada, 2022 was a record year for vacant (non-management) health care positions. We are talking here about women and men who put their heart and soul into looking after our relatives, our loved ones, our friends.

Let's take a moment, all of us, to thank these workers for their dedication, their courage, and their tenacity.

As Teamsters, though, we do more than offer thanks. We fight to have these essential workers' contributions recognized for what they are really worth, and to improve working conditions within the health and social services system.

For example, at Woods Park Care Centre (Sienna Senior Living) in Barrie, Ontario, our Local Union 419 representatives and members demonstrated strength and solidarity in hammering out their new collective agreement. Highlights of the agreement include a wage increase of 6% over two years, which is unprecedented in Ontario's health care system; a guaranteed $3 an hour bonus for public-sector workers, for the duration of the agreement; an additional 50¢ an hour increase for senior nurse practitioners and support workers; and enhanced complementary health benefits, vision benefits and, for the first time, a mental health component. Our success in having a mental health component included in the collective agreement will set the tone for all future bargaining in this sector.

As well, our sisters and brothers at Dexterra Forensics in Toronto, one of North America's most sophisticated forensic science complexes, ended the year by concluding a historic collective agreement that provides a 14% increase for the duration of the contract.

In Quebec, Local Union 106 continues to be active with our members working in public long term health care facilities, intermediate care resources, and private-sector retirement residences. In May, Teamsters made a significant gain when letters of agreement were signed with Groupe Savoie (owner of the Résidences Soleil chain), making permanent the bonuses paid by the government to retain

Teamsters will be closely monitoring how the government implements Coroner Géhane Kamel's May 2022 recommendations. We point out that her report reiterated certain issues we had noted in the brief we presented at the inquiry.