Personal support workers at Ontario hospitals have been waiting for months for a pay rise promised by the government, with unions and hospitals saying a delay in instructions from the province has delayed payments.
The delay means many workers have effectively taken a pay cut, unions said, although Premier Doug Ford announced in March that the temporary $2-an-hour raise introduced during the pandemic would become permanent.
Several unions have said they are lobbying the government on this and note that the long-awaited provincial instructions have recently started to arrive. They are now pushing the government to expedite the payment of missing wages and explain the delay.
“There is no excuse for this,” said Michael Hurley, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ Ontario Council of Hospital Unions.
The wage delay has left workers feeling ‘misled, discouraged and undervalued’ at a time when the hospital system is under strain and several emergency departments have had to temporarily close for periods due to the understaffed, Hurley said.
“Those are not feelings we want them to have,” he said.
Unions and hospitals lag behind government instructions
The wage increase was first introduced more than two years ago as a temporary measure to support healthcare workers during the pandemic. It was repeatedly extended for months until March, when Ford announced plans to make the increase permanent.
After that, CUPE said that personal support workers in long-term care and social services continued to receive the highest hourly rate without interruption, but that was not the case for workers. hospitals.
Several unions and hospitals told The Canadian Press that the lack of government guidance on eligibility and funding delayed the process of granting the permanent wage increase to hospital PSWs.
The government has not commented on the delay in guidelines related to salary increases for personal support workers in hospitals. A spokeswoman for Health Minister Sylvia Jones said in an email that “this funding has been spread across the province.”
“Those with concerns about payments are encouraged to contact their employer for additional information,” Hannah Jensen wrote.
A St. Catharines hospital sent a letter Monday to a SEIU Healthcare union representative saying it had “received word from the Department of Health that the wage increase is now permanent.” The Hôtel-Dieu Shaver has promised that the pay increase for personal support workers will appear on future pay stubs.
But a union spokesperson said problems remained as hospitals took different approaches to payments.
Some pay back pay in a lump sum, while others spread it over multiple paychecks. As of Tuesday, only one hospital that employed SEIU members had provided a funding letter, Corey Johnson said.
A spokeswoman for the University Health Network in Toronto said in an email that “hospitals are awaiting government approvals on process and eligibility,” but UHN only received its own instructions a few years ago. weeks.
“Payments are pending and are retroactive,” Gillian Howard wrote. “I don’t know what pay period but definitely as soon as it can be managed.”
Delay causing retention problem for PSWs, says CUPE
Tyler Holmes, a personal support worker at Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital in Orillia, Ont., said he heard last Friday from his union that the hospital had received its funding letter from the province and that payments would start this month – more than six months after he started work.
Holmes said he loved his job at the hospital, which he took after working in long-term care, but was frustrated by the delay in getting the permanent pay raise.
“In the first two months, there was a lot of discussion about whether I would stay in the hospital or go back to long-term care because of the pay cut,” he said in an interview. . “It came down to the bills, and as we know, the cost of living doesn’t go anywhere except for the top.”
Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare CEO Cheryl Harrison said the organization recently received a funding letter from the Department of Health confirming that the salary increase would be covered.
She said the organization was covering salary increases at its hospitals in Bracebridge and Huntsville based on the government’s pledge in the meantime, in a bid to support recruitment.
CUPE’s Hurley said retention is a major issue as hospital personal support workers wait for their pay rise because they can easily make more money working in long-term care .
Personal care workers play an important role in hospitals, he said, as their jobs include tasks such as walking patients around and bringing them food and clean bedding, which frees up nurses to concentrate. on other areas of patient care.
“You would think the priority for the government and the priority for the Department of Health would be to make sure we could retain the staff we have now,” he said. “That’s why we will continue to press and emphasize that this is not acceptable.”
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