‘We are fed up with watching our communities get cheated while services and clients suffer’: Leeds and Grenville health agencies could strike by May 25
Three Brockville area social services agencies have been issued no board reports.
The three agencies, Lanark, Leeds and Grenville Addictions and Mental Health, Brockville and Area Community Living Association and Children’s Mental Health of Leeds and Grenville, represented by Local OPSEU 441, are now on a countdown to potential strike action.
A total of 28 other local health agencies represented by OPSEU have filed no board reports to the provincial government, meaning they would also be on strike.
In a release, workers at these agencies said that they are “putting the Ford government on notice: act now to deliver on stolen wages, fund services and avert a province-wide strike.”
Without immediate action from the provincial government, more than 4,500 workers across Ontario who are “supporting children, families and vulnerable members of our communities” are prepared strike as early as May 25, according to the release.
OPSEU Local 441 is calling on local MPP Steve Clark to secure more funding from the province for their agencies.
Local 441 members want Clark to secure more provincial funding for the local agencies.
Some of the key grievances workers have include under compensation relative to peers in the primary care system and inadequate increases in provincial funding over the last 20 years.
“We are fed up with watching our communities get cheated while services and clients suffer, and workers are asked to do more with less,” said JP Hornick, OPSEU President.
“Doug Ford has underfunded our community services to the point of crisis – and it’s pushing many workers into poverty. When Bill 124 was repealed more than two years ago we told Ford to make it right – and he has failed to do so.”
“Imagine your family trying to live on the money that you were making 20 years ago,” said Lisa Zufelt, the Local 441 president, who also works in the developmental services sector.
“That’s what our agencies are faced with. They are faced with trying to run their programs on the same amount of money that they were getting almost 20 years ago.”
According to Zufelt, this lack of funding is partly due to lack of compensation from Bill 124, a law passed in 2018 that locked down what employers could pay their staff through the bargaining process, limiting total compensation to one per cent.
It was later deemed unconstitutional and most sectors were compensated, but developmental services and mental health and addictions services were not, contributing to the lack of funding that persists today.
“So ultimately we’re looking for the remedy to Bill 124,” said Zufelt.
Clark previously told Brockvilleist that he hopes workers think about their vulnerable clients before going on strike.
Zufelt says that the vulnerability of the agencies’ clientele is exactly why they are demanding better funding.
“We’re looking at the most vulnerable people in our communities who we care for, who are being ignored,” she said.
“Our communities are cheated, our services and our clients suffer, our employers suffer because we’re not going to be there to do the work. Our labour is the only thing we have to be able to stand up and try and make sure that the folks that we do support continue to be supported.
“Because nobody wants to go on strike. But that’s the only position we have,” she added.
“Children don’t vote. Typically, people with any social disability don’t vote. People who are struggling with mental health and addiction from homelessness don’t vote. So, he (Clark) doesn’t have a foot in the game, I guess. Maybe he just doesn’t care because they don’t vote for him.”
Clark has pointed to the soon-to-be opened Brockville HART hub as a major initiative that he helped bring to the area, but Zufelt says that, while the concept is wonderful, it still won’t be enough to address the underlying issues, especially if the funding simply isn’t there.
“Let’s Let’s look at the systemic solution,” she said.