Hello,
On June 13 2023 Arbitrator Kaplan issued his decision regarding your new additional wage increases for 2021 and 2022. This new wage increase is a result of Doug Ford’s Bill 124 being found to be unconstitutional for suppressing your Charter-protected rights to free collective bargaining. Please click the link below to read the most recent newsletter from the Ontario Coalition of Hospital Unions for more information:
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ochu.on.ca
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School Board workers going on strike made the difference:
While Arbitrator Kaplan does not award wage increases as high as your union representatives argued for, the award is still higher than the previous wage patterns.
Previous wage patterns of 1.75% and 3% were effectively disrupted by the historic strike by CUPE-OSBCU school board workers in November 2022 who overturned Bill 28 and broke the old patterns, achieving increases of $1/year in each of four years (averaging 3.6% in year one). Building on school board workers’ success and the overturning of Bill 124, settlements began further increasing in early 2023 culminating in the now established pattern of 4.75% and 3.5% initially set by PWU, followed by PSAC and now applied to CUPE and SEIU hospital contracts.
What did Arbitrator Kaplan award?
Page 34 and 35 of the award give what is awarded. You can read it here: https://ochu.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/OHA-OCHU-SEIU-Award48-1-1.pdf
Award Wages (New Money)
CUPE
September 29, 2021: 3.75% increase
September 29, 2022: 2.5% increase
Full retroactivity within 90 days to current and former employees.
For PSWs the $2/hr permanent wage enhancement is included in the base wage rate and the percentage increases above are calculated on top of the $2.
SEIU
January 1, 2022: 3.75%
January 1, 2023: 2.5% In accordance with Article 29.03 of the Collective Agreement.
RPN Adjustment
CUPE & SEIU
Effective date of award add $2 to the preponderant maximum RPN rate in effect on the expiry of the prior agreement – $31.18 – and adjust other rates accordingly.
For further clarity, the first year maximum RPN rate at any Hospital, will not be less than $33.18 prior to the general wage increases for the two years of this agreement. Establishing a “floor” maximum RPN rate in this way, is in line with previous Local Issues awards between these parties, which have raised the “floor” for a Hospital’s RPN rates when those fall below the “floor,” as we do here. Hospitals providing maximum RPN rates above the “floor” will continue those RPN salary grids, modified of course by the general wage increases for the period of this agreement. This RPN adjustment is effective the date of this award.
Call Back
CUPE & SEIU
Effective date of award increased to double time.
Shift and Weekend Premiums
CUPE & SEIU
Effective date of award increase by $1 for shift premium, and $1.50 for weekend. Parties to amend CUPE central agreement to ensure that both premiums paid if both shift and weekend are worked. Any superior conditions maintained.
Benefits (Massage & Vision)
Union proposals awarded effective date of award. Per visit massage cap is replaced by “reasonable and customary” limitation.
Explanation of the RPN Adjustment awarded by Arbitrator Kaplan:
Effective June 13, 2023 – any hospital with a top wage rate for RPNs below $35.97 will be increased to $35.97. All other steps on the RPN wage grid will also be increased to maintain the differential.
Explanation of Call Back: Call Back refers to Article 15.06 of your collective agreement. It applies when someone has completed their regular shift and then is called back to work before the start of their next regularly scheduled shift. If the employer does this, that person has to be given work for at least 4 hours at double time (it was 1.5x) or be paid at least that much, even if the employer doesn’t make the person work the full four hours.
Higher wages are still needed to address staffing crisis:
Mr. Kaplan found that, in addition to corrosive and entrenched inflation, there is a recruitment and retention crisis in Ontario hospitals affecting CUPE-represented classifications, with historic vacancy and turnover rates based on the Hospitals’ own data. Hospitals are paying agency staff double or triple the wages of hospital employees in the same classifications, underscoring the fact that “compensation is a, if not the, key driver in attracting employees.”
While these gains take some of the sting out of the erosion of purchasing power from sustained high inflation it will not fully maintain hospital workers’ relative wages over the two year term. These increases still leave hospital workers earning at least 2% less in real terms than before the term began, and they do not increase the value attached to hospital work enough to attract new workers to fill the thousands and thousands of hospital jobs that sit empty. Such a shortcoming is frustrating for hospital workers who have sacrificed so much during the pandemic and are struggling to provide care amidst stark understaffing, yet still find themselves worse off economically than they were two years ago.
Your actions matter:
CUPE workers in hospitals and all sectors deserve credit for the Ontario government’s decision not to request a stay when appealing Bill 124: heated protests against Bill 124 and the labour movement’s support for school boards workers likely gave the government pause. In the coming round of negotiations, the Hospitals will seek to take back some of these gains, and further erode wages. Strong pressure will be needed to force the hospitals to negotiate a fair deal and to force the Ford government drop the appeal of Bill 124 and to provide adequate funding to restore stability to publicly delivered healthcare.
What you can do now:
To be a part of winning better wages in your sector, and for workers in ontario as a whole, please subscribe to updates from OCHU at ochu.on.ca, and join the Enough is Enough and Justice4Workers campaigns.
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Decent Work for All
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When will the ‘retro’ payments be issued?
Arbitrator Kaplan’s award order the retroactive payments to be made within 90 days of June 13 2023, to current and former employees.
All the best,
Orion Keresztesi
National Representative, Local 3651 Administrator
Ontario Regional Office
Office: 705-712-0157