Hospital workers rallied on Friday afternoon in front of La Verendrye Hospital to protest Bill 195.
Bill 195 was introduced in the legislature two weeks ago. It will extend the emergency order that was implemented as a result of COVID-19. This order gives employers the right to cancel or deny vacations or leaves of absence, change or cancel shifts and relocation to another site.
This rally was organized by CUPE Local 4807. This union represents workers in Fort Frances, Emo, Rainy River, as well as paramedics in Rainy River, Emo, Fort Frances and Atikokan.
Corinne Webb, president of CUPE Local 4807, said since the pandemic is almost over there is no need to infringe on their collective bargaining rights.
“We’ve been there,” Webb said. “We’ve worked days and days in a row. We stepped up across the province. Even here where there are no cases in Fort Frances. We still had to do all the same precautions. We still had to do high touch cleaning. We still have to take precautions when we are dealing with patients.”
CUPE Local 4807 has 200 members, all calling for public support to pressure the provincial government with them, to have their rights restored to them during this period when the Coronavirus is in remission.
Webb said Premier Ford lauded healthcare workers as heroes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Now he is slapping us in the face saying even though things are better, he still wants to be able to suspend our collective agreement rights. Now we think we have been treated rather badly on the other side of giving a 150 per cent to the patients and dealing with COVID-19,” Webb said.
“But now as cases are going down, why do you still need to manipulate the workforce? It should be able to go back to status quo. Bill 195 says we don’t need the emergency order anymore, but we still want to place restrictions on hospital workers.”
The emergency order was placed when cases of COVID-19 in Canada were increasing, and allowed the employer to change shifts, cancel vacations and leaves of absence and reassign jobs without prior notice.
Briana Rousseau, Hospital Vice-President CUPE Local 4807, said COVID-19 has taken a terrible toll on the world and the people of Canada and Ontario and it has taken a heavy toll on Ontario healthcare workers.
“As of today, 6,300 Ontario healthcare workers have contracted COVID-19 at work and 14 have died. We have worked through this virus, despite shortages of protective equipment, to provide the best healthcare that we could for the people of this great province. The people of Ontario can count on us,” Rousseau said.
“When the virus was beginning to surge in Ontario in March and there were over 1,000 new cases a day, the government suspended many of our basic workplace protections and gave employers the power to change our shifts, require us to work overtime, change our jobs, move us to another site or to long term care, eliminate our jobs, remove our rights to bump or post into positions, cancel our leaves of absences or vacations and much more.”
July 17 was the first day of stage 3 of reopening the province of Ontario and lifting up restrictions. In stage 3, indoor dine-in restaurants, movie theatres, bars and casinos are allowed to open while following provincial safety guidelines. This comes after positive COVID-19 cases in Ontario dropped to just 120 people in Ontario’s 120 hospitals.
“Bill 195 gives the employers the indefinite power to change our jobs, to move us to another site or to long term care, to eliminate our jobs and bring someone from outside to do our work, to remove our rights to bump or post into positions, to cancel our leaves of absences or vacations, to contract out work,” Rousseau said.
Protesters said there is no point for the emergency order to be extended if the province is slowly opening up. Rousseau said they have shown the people of Ontario how much they can lean on them when they need to.
“Because we won’t accept, and we can’t accept the elimination of our basic workplace rights. It’s a cruel reward for the sacrifice that we have made. And we need the help of the people of Ontario now to help is to convince the government to change the course on this and to drop the orders that suspend our workplace rights,” Rousseau said.
“We are going to campaign until our rights are restored, however long that takes. And I am confident that the love and compassion that we have shown to the people of Ontario will be returned now, when we need it.”
The Ontario Council of Hospital Unions and CUPE believe that the healthcare heroes who have served Ontarians tirelessly during the COVID-19 pandemic deserve better, Webb said.
“We deserve better. We will keep pushing until we get some results,” she said.
