We are the tens of thousands of OPSEU/SEFPO members working on the front-lines of health care.
We give our all to patients, but staffing shortages make our jobs more difficult.
Privatizing health care services will make the crisis even worse.
It’s hard to make life or death decisions when we’re burnt out and overworked.
We’re calling on the Premier and Minister of Health to fix the health care staffing crisis.
A Manufactured Crisis
The Ford government has manufactured this crisis. They stifled health care workers’ pay with their unconstitutional Bill 124 – capping wage increases to 1% at a time when cost of living is the worst it’s ever been.
The government failed to spend nearly $2 billion of money that was specifically earmarked for health care during the pandemic.
Now, they claim that ‘the status quo isn’t working’ and privatization is the only solution.
The Ford government is going to pay private clinics 300% more for private surgeries than public hospitals would be paid for the same surgeries.
They are also out-sourcing inspection and enforcement of standards at these private health care facilities to a private company.
These are public funds going towards shareholder profits, not care.
Ontarians did not vote for private health care. Our lives are not for profit.
We have had enough.
Key demands
Fair wages for healthcare workers.
- Legislated wage cuts (Bill 124) and poor working conditions are at the heart of the healthcare crisis. Healthcare workers have been overworked and undervalued. We face burnout and mental health injury, and this has caused a retention and recruitment crisis. It’s time to make health care a profession that people want to enter.
- Stop government interference into the fair collective bargaining process – collective agreements must respected; not overridden by the government at their whim.
- Focus on negotiating with frontline workers, not fighting us in court to stifle our wages. If you expect workers to show up, pay up!
Improve Recruitment and Retention.
- Provide responsive incentives to the current workforce to keep them from leaving their professions and invest in training/education to attract new workers. For so many, tuition is simply not affordable, especially in this cost of living crisis.
- Invest in providing well-paying healthcare jobs for healthcare workers directly; not investing in staffing agencies that pull money out of our public system and into inflated private profits.
Keep Health Care Public and stop the sell-off.
- Our public healthcare system is strong, but it requires funding and staffing to meet the demand for care; our province has the resources to make that happen. Ontario competes for last place out of all provinces when it comes to funding for healthcare. We can do better.
- Access to strong public healthcare is a great equalizer in our society. Stop privatization and invest all new funding in public healthcare for all.
