To The Point: May 2023
OPSEU/SEFPO Sector 19 Newsletter
Download a printable PDF version here.Greetings Sector 19 members!Message from Sector Chair – Geoff Cain
Enough is Enough!Enough is Enough!Sector 19. You’re likely aware of the OFL’s “Enough is Enough!” Campaign that OPSEU/SEFPO and unions across the province are supporting.Key issues are:
- A global cost of living crisis.
- Spiking inflation, soaring interest rates and wage suppression
- The Ford government’s privatization agenda
- Manufacturing the health care crises to introduce user fees and private, for-profit services
- Corporate interest over workers’ well-being
- Enough of low wages and pathetic increases not compensating workers fairly
- Enough to precarious employment
- Enough of pay equity maintenance that employers ignore
- Enough of toxic workplaces and employer bullying
- Enough of subverting our Collective Agreements and grievance processes
- Enough of schedules that upend work life balance
No Paid Plasma Queen’s Park Lobby day – April 24
Kat Lanteigne, CEO of BloodWatch, along with your sector chair and OPSEU/SEFPO staff met with a number of Conservative MPPs at Queen’s Park to tell them that Canadian veins are not for profit!Our group explained that MPPs should be fighting along with us to uphold Ontario’s Voluntary Blood Donations Act and to stop CBS from granting Grifols Pharmaceuticals a monopoly on plasma collection in Ontario.NDP MPPs posted pictures on social media to support our campaign and tell CBS and Grifols that blood donors are not for sale! #notinmyriding.No Paid Plasma Campaign
On December 1, 2022, your Divisional Executive helped organize an information picket in front of the CBS headquarters in Ottawa.Together, with representatives from NUPGE, Bloodwatch.org, CUPE, the Canadian Health Coalition and other supporting unions, the Sector 19 (Canadian Blood Services and Diagnostics) Divisional Executive attended the picket to protest an agreement that CBS has signed with a for-profit, multinational pharmaceutical company (Grifols) to privatize plasma collection.
The Info Picket marked the kick start of our No Paid Plasma Campaign.And you can join the effort by signing the open letter telling health ministers and key executives at Canadian Blood Services to stop the agreement with Grifols and comply with the terms of the Voluntary Blood Donations Act.Many people have already signed on including Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles and Health Critic France Gélinas.Head over to the No Paid Plasma page to sign now:
https://opseu.org/stopforprofitplasma/CBS Bargaining update and No Paid Plasma info session – April 26, 2023
Recently, your Divisional Executive and CBS Bargaining Teams met throughout the province to discuss the status of bargaining and to hear a presentation about our No Paid Plasma campaign.Collectively, all CBS Bargaining units need to come together to take action to stop the Grifols deal. Privatized plasma collection will hurt our donor base in both plasma and whole blood collection centres. Let’s help stop this and keep our blood supply safe!Rally in solidarity with OPSEU/SEFPO Hospital professionals against privatization
On April 27, members of Sector 19 attending the OPSEU/SEFPO Convention in Toronto left the convention venue to rally in solidarity with OPSEU/ SEFPO hospital professionals in their fight against Bill 60, the Ford government’s healthcare privatization bill.The bill will allow an unlimited number of private clinics to perform OHIP-covered surgical and diagnostic services, pulling funding and staffing away from the public hospital system.We all stood together to send a message to keep health care public and end the for-profit agenda that threatens all our public health services. collection will hurt our donor base in both plasma and whole blood collection centres.Let’s help stop this and keep our blood supply safe!