Two more OPSEU/SEFPO units have reached agreements ending 18-week strikes, continuing a historic trend being set by frontline workers in community, health and social services.
OPSEU/SEFPO Local 249 – Community Living Oakville has ratified a new collective agreement, while OPSEU/SEFPO Local 305 – Community Living South Muskoka has received an award through mediation-arbitration.
Workers in both agencies provide critical support to adults with developmental disabilities so they can live and thrive in their communities. These recent settlements continue to build on the new standard workers have established together across developmental services – with significant wage increases, pension improvements, coordinated expiry dates and strong Bill 124 re-opener language:
- Historic wage increases: In developmental services, where typical wage increases of zero or one per cent have been the norm for over a decade, workers are achieving a standard of three per cent or higher. In a sector facing high turnover and burnout, raising wages is also about strengthening continuity of care, retaining skilled workers and ensuring support is there when people need it.
- Pensions: Many units have secured pensions or expanded pension access to part-time workers – an important gain in a sector that relies heavily on part-time and precarious work
- Common expiry dates: Most units have aligned their expiry dates, with most collective agreements expiring in 2028. That means workers can head into the next round of bargaining together, with even greater coordination and collective strength.
- Stronger Bill 124 language: Workers have also secured strong Bill 124 Letters of Understanding as they continue their fight for remedy for stolen wages from Bill 124. This language will ensure that once funding is received, it can flow quickly to workers.
Workers built this standard together – and they are standing together to defend it. Through coordinated bargaining and fierce solidarity, workers have drawn a line in the sand. They will keep pushing for compensation that ensures workers can make ends meet and build careers in these vital jobs, they will keep fighting for Bill 124 remedy, and they will keep demanding the dedicated, long-term government funding needed to sustain the services people across Ontario rely on.
Solidarity with workers continuing to hold the line
Workers at two other developmental services agencies – Norfolk Association for Community Living and Ingersoll Support Services – remain on strike or locked out, determined to achieve fair agreements that meet the new sector standard and address critical working-condition issues.
In Toronto, workers at Sistering and Dr. Roz’s Healing Place also remain on strike. Workers at Sandgate Women’s Shelter reached an agreement in September, building on the gains achieved at Denise House and establishing an important new trend in the shelter sector – a trend that workers at Sistering and Dr. Roz’s Healing Place are continuing to fight for.
These workers care deeply about the people they support. They want programs and services fully restored – and they are calling on their employers to stop delaying and stalling and reach fair deals now. All of OPSEU/SEFPO stands behind these workers as they fight for better – starting with fair collective agreements and continuing with the fight for Bill 124 remedy and the long-term government funding these vital services need.