Following <a href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-to-table-legislation-making-psw-wage-increase-permanent-government-source-1.5819517" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reporting</a> from The Canadian Press on Tuesday morning that the government would table legislation to make temporary pandemic wage increases for personal support workers (PSW) permanent, Premier Doug Ford confirmed the move at an unrelated press conference later that day.
“For years (PSWs) were ignored, they were underpaid, overworked. And we acknowledged that by giving them the $3 an hour increase. We are going to make it permanent and it's well-deserved,” Ford said.
“They got the pay because they’ve worked their back off and they've been ignored for many, many years from the previous administration. Now we're going to implement it as a permanent pay hike, as a $3 increase and it's well-deserving.”
The current temporary wage increase – due to expire March 31 – implemented $2-to-$3-per-hour increases for PSWs in long-term care, home care, public hospitals and social services. The wage increases, introduced back in October 2020, have been <a href="https://www.qpbriefing.com/2021/06/11/province-extends-temporary-pay-bump-for-personal-support-workers-amid-calls-to-make-it-permanent/">extended four times</a>. Back in July, the premier had promised to make the increase permanent.
Alexandra Hilkene, a spokesperson for Health Minister Christine Elliott, confirmed to QP Briefing that the legislation would be tabled “later this month,” and would contain the PSW wage increase.
The bill will have “a number of measures,” Hilkene said, “aimed at helping bolster health human resources and build a stronger and more resilient health-care system that is better prepared to respond to crisis as Ontario begins its post-pandemic recovery.”
Weeks ago in February, the province had also <a href="https://www.qpbriefing.com/2022/02/11/ford-government-offering-5000-bonus-to-burnt-out-nurses/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reached a deal with the Ontario Nurses Association</a> for a $5,000 retention bonuses that unions slammed as a “<a href="https://seiuhealthcare.ca/doug-fords-ad-hoc-gestures-wont-fix-the-worsening-health-human-resource-crisis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">band-aid pay-as-you-vote gimmick</a>.”
For Sharleen Stewart, the president of Service Employees International Union Healthcare — a union representing 60,000 health care workers including PSWs — this PSW wage increase is another “pay-as-you-vote gimmick” from the premier.
Through a piecemeal approach of giving money out to certain types of health-care workers but not others, “he’s pitting worker against worker. He is sitting in Queen's Park evaluating who's more important in his eyes,” Stewart said in an interview with QP Briefing.
“All of these low-paid workers will take money. They will take money in any form that it comes to them. But is this a long-term strategic or smart way to deal with the crisis in health care? Absolutely not.”
Stewart also called on Ford to release the proposed legislation today to “allow the PSWs and the unions and families that rely on them in long-term care to take a look at it, and to be able to amend the legislation to make it worth the paper it's written on.”
Ontario Council of Hospital Unions president Michael Hurley, whose organization represents over 90,000 health care workers within the Canadian Union of Public Employees, also warned against the government’s move toward “occupational favouritism” that doesn’t address the root cause of health-care worker shortages.
Hurley said that, because Bill 124, which froze public sector employees’ wage increases to one per cent/year, effectively limited the ability of health-care workers to bargain wages reflecting their increasingly scarce skills, the exodus of health-care workers will continue.
“You’ve got people being held down, prevented from bargaining, at the very moment in history when there is public acknowledgment, first of all, of the value of their work, and secondly, of the scarcity of the people who do their work. So, they actually do have bargaining power, except Ontario's preventing them from using it,” Hurley said. “And until that's remedied, you're just going to have ad hoc measure after ad hoc measure. But the thing is, you're also going to have a deeply unhappy health-care workforce.”
Ford, at the press conference, also commented on the ongoing race for the federal Conservative leadership and mask mandates being lifted at Queen’s Park.
When asked if he, or any of his MPPs, would endorse or advocate for any candidate in particular, Ford gave a straightforward answer.
“No, I'll be supporting the people of Ontario. I have my hands full moving forward. And as for our MPPs, I believe they'll have their hands full,” Ford said.
Come Monday, when the legislature returns from its weeklong break, mask mandates will be lifting across the province in most settings.
Ford, however, said he’ll be keeping his on and that it’s up to individual MPPs on whether they want to mask or not. The premier also had some rare cross-party praise for adherence to public health restrictions, saying “no matter if it's the Greens, the Libs, the Dippers or the PCs, everyone’s going to follow the proper protocols … But I always side on the err of caution. For the first few days, I'll be keeping my mask on.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misstated Hurley's title and the number of health care workers represented by the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions. QP Briefing regrets this error.

PSW temporary wage increase to be made permanent through legislation

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