Women comprise 74% of the Ontario education, health care, and social assistance workforce. A strong female majority is present in all three of these sectors but is especially marked in health care and social assistance, where 762,800 women work. These three industries account for 31% of all women employees in Ontario. So
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Defend Public Healthcare: Ford government stumbles into a health care staffing crisis
Job vacancies across the Ontario economy have sky-rocketed over the last two years, with a ten percent increase in 2020 and a 66% increase in 2021. Compounded that represents a 82% increase in job vacancies. Correspondingly the average offered hourly wage for all occupations went up 4.6% in Ontario (to
Continue readingDefend Public Healthcare: Collective bargaining in Ontario: New trends, new possibilities
New militancy: Recent strikes in the broader provincial public sector by 13,000 university teaching assistants and Community Care Access Centre employees (mostly RNs) suggest increased willingness of some broader public sector employees to strike to maintain and improve their working conditions. Moreover the workers achieved some success in their strikes.
Continue readingDefend Public Healthcare: Ontario’s economy improves. Will collective bargaining follow?
The Ontario Economy: The 2015 Ontario Budget has revised the government’s real growth estimate up significantly from its 2014 Fall Economic Fiscal Outlook. Real growth for 2014 is now put at 2.2% for 2014, up from the fall forecast of 1.9% and real growth for 2015 is forecast at 2.7%,
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Provincial public sector wage increases less than private sector for fourth year
For the fourth consecutive year in a row, wage settlements in the broader provincial public sector (i.e. public sector workers, like hospital employees, who do not work for federal or municipal governments) fell below the wage settlements in the private sector. In 2013, provincial public sector wage settlements averaged about
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Public sector wages lag private sector
Conservatives often suggest that public sector settlements are out of whack with private sector settlements. In fact, the evidence from Ontario over the last couple of decades proves the opposite. Public sector settlements have fallen behind private sector settlements. Here is the data from the Ontario Ministry of Labour: Percent
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Public sector wages lag private sector
Conservatives often suggest that public sector settlements are out of whack with private sector settlements. In fact, the evidence from Ontario over the last couple of decades proves the opposite. Public sector settlements have fallen behind private sector settlements. Here is the data from the Ontario Ministry of Labour: Percent
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Management wage increases dwarf others
Earlier I noted that while the provincial government was imposing concessions (and wage freezes) on unionized public sector workers, the Conference Board of Canada was predicting 2.7% increases for non-union employees in Ontario in 2013 (up from 2.6% actual increases in 2012). Now, Statistics Canada data suggests this may be
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Attack on free collective bargaining political, not fiscal
In December, it was predicted that outgoing finance minister Dwight Duncan would reduce his deficit forecast just before his departure (for Bay Street). Duncan had somehow estimated in his fall economic statement that the 2012-3 deficit would be $14.4 billion, i.e. higher than the 2011-12 deficit — and even higher than
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: What’s $1.4 B? Well, it all depends who you are…
Auditor General Jim McCarter The $1.4 billion in, mostly corporate, taxes that the Ontario Liberal government plans to walk away from (according to Auditor General), is exactly equal to the amount of money Finance Minister Dwight Duncan claims he absolutely has to save in the in the first year of the
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Docs up $8,300 each in recent negotiations?
Dr. Michael Rachlis, a well known expert on the health care system, suggests there is more to the recent deal the province hatched with the Ontario Medical Association than has been reported.
He estimates that increased utilization and “fee…
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: OMA Deal: Surprise! Bargaining works
It’s a sign of our times when a simple labour agreement can be framed as a political triumph. The latest is news the Ontario Medical Association reached a deal with the provincial government this week on behalf of 25,000 doctors. … Continue rea…
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: OSSTF bargaining stops as OPSEU talks start
Negotiations between the government and OSSTF (the union representing public secondary school teachers) have ended. Harvey Bischof, vice president for the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, told the Ottawa Citizen that t…
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Liberal excuse for ending collective bargaining in tatters
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 o…
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Will Liberal leadership candidates support free collective bargaining?
Both of the key architects of the Liberal government’s attack on free collective bargaining are as good as gone. McGuinty will be gone January 26 and Finance Minister Dwight Duncan has indicated he will likely be gone from the Finance Ministry right about the same time. The Liberal party has
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Politics, not deficits, behind attack on collective bargaining
Before the Liberals started attacking collective bargaining, they proposed a wage freeze in the summer of 2010. The unions duly met with the government over the summer of 2010 to discuss this. While there was no agreement, settlements funded by the province have now moderated significantly. But since that time
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Are public sector cuts ‘tame’ compared to private sector?
Dwight Duncan claimed yesterday that compared to the belt-tightening endured by workers in the private sector, his legislation restricting collective bargaining in the public sector “is tame stuff”. Sounds like a claim worth investigating. Wages are the most important single item bargained — for both workers and employers. So it’s
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Corporate bosses excluded from cuts. But not their employees
No surprise here — but the bosses of the for-profit corporations that provide long term care and home care services funded by the public sector are excluded from the Protecting Public Services legislation proposed today by the Liberal government (as set out in schedule 1 of the Public Sector Compensation Restraint
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Ontario hospitals oppose wage cap
It’s not often that Ontario hospitals express opposition to government policy publicly. But the government’s new cap on public sector executive pay of $418,000 (annually) has caused them to come out and release a public statement expressing their “extreme disappointment.” “This is another example of the Government of Ontario and
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Liberals threaten to bring back interest arbitration legislation
A senior Liberal official has said the government will bring back the interest arbitration legislation that was defeated when the government brought in its Budget bill earlier this year. “We’ll be taking action and reintroducing the sections of the budget bill that Hudak instructed his party’s members to vote against,
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