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A new provincial poll released today shows that Ontarians aren’t on board for recent Liberal government changes that would redirect 911 medical calls away from paramedic ambulance services to fire departments.
If they had to make a 911 call for medical assistance for themselves or a family member, more than 83 per cent of the 2,500 Ontarians surveyed said they prefer a response by an ambulance service. Only 6.8 per cent said they preferred a response by a fire department. The poll was conducted late in 2017, immediately following the passing of changes to the Ambulance Act that could allow fundamental changes to 911 emergency medical response and pre-hospital care, say paramedics with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). These changes include allowing pilot projects in “willing” municipalities to experiment with using firefighters who also have a paramedic designation to respond to pre-hospital emergency medical calls. When asked directly whether they would support government replacing an ambulance service response to some 911 medical calls with a fire department response, more than 70 per cent of respondents said they were against the change. Just over 65 per cent said they didn’t think allowing municipalities to replace ambulance services with fire department services on 911 medical calls would improve patient care. The polling shows “that the province really doesn’t have Ontarians’ support to alter 911 medical response to redirect medical response to fire departments. Our findings show there is really no appetite for this. Ontarians understand both the patient care implications and the higher costs that will be incurred by municipalities if the province goes through with this model. “The paramedics whom CUPE represents are strongly urging this government to put resources into enhancing ambulance paramedic response, not these fire experiments,” says Jason Fraser, chair of the CUPE Ambulance Committee of Ontario (CACO), which represents more than 5,500 paramedics at ambulance services province-wide. There are about 8,000 paramedics in Ontario. To date, no municipality has volunteered to run a pilot, although the province has said trials would be in place by March 2018. In fact, municipalities, through their provincial umbrella group, have come out against moving to a medical response through fire departments. A paramedic fire model would increase costs for municipalities as an hour of fire service is 55 per cent higher in cost than an hour of ambulance service. Municipalities pay 100 per cent for fire services through the local tax base while the province pays 50 per cent of ambulance-based paramedic services. Studies confirm that emergency medical calls are increasing, while the number of fires is declining. Nearly 62 per cent polled said they agree that the provincial government should study the public health and economic potential for moving resources from services that have a declining need, such as fire calls, to services that have an increasing need, such as ambulance-based paramedic calls. “We need rational planning for our emergency services, not politically driven decisions. It appears that the only supporters of this model are the firefighters’ association that proposed it and the provincial Liberals that are facilitating it,” says Fraser. Polling was conducted by Public Polling and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.82 per cent, 19 times out of 20. For more information, please contact: Stella Yeadon, CUPE Communications, 416-559-9300 syeadon@cupe.ca January 21st, 2018
Durham Region Council Affiliates and Delegates Sisters and Brothers, The Durham Region Labour Council Executive conducted an emergency meeting Sunday to discuss the January 18th, 2018 letter of Unifor Canada - disaffiliation from the Canadian Labour Congress. The council executive met to discuss the current status of the dispute, impacts to the council and our next steps. During the next few weeks, the council is expecting correspondence from both the CLC and Unifor about the dispute and the process and positions that both organizations have taken. The Executive will meet again on the regularly scheduled date of February 5th, 2018 at 6:30 p.m. to review the current status of the situation before our General Membership meeting scheduled for February 13th, 2018 at 7:00 P.M. Many of us feel that we as delegates to the Durham Region Labour Council are being used as pawns in this unfortunate outcome of the current dispute in Canada. There is without a doubt, real commitment from the delegates of Unifor to the contributions of building a working class movement for the betterment of all workers in our society. Three of the current Labour Council Executive members find themselves torn from these decisions of their national organization. After a very deep conversation with the information we have currently, we have decided we will continue to watch this situation closely and will again meet on February 5th as DRLC Executive. If there are any major changes to the positions of either of the organizations, or changes to the current dispute, we will communicate that information when it becomes available. At this point the current location of the next General Membership meeting, will be held at the same location of Unifor Local 222 Union Hall - 1425 Phillip Murray Ave, Oshawa, ON at 7:00 P.M. If this location is changed, we will notify you as to the change in location. We look forward to your presence at this meeting for a full discussion of the situation. We welcome the continued work and passion from Unifor delegates to the council. We wish for a fair resolution to the dispute ASAP. The council will continue to explore ways of making any transition during this period of time. There is lots of work to be done to challenge bad employers, challenging wealth inequality in society and winning major advancements for our communities. We look forward to your continued work in this regard. In Solidarity! Durham Region Labour Council Executive CUPE 9112 protesters gathered outside Cobourg, Toronto and Whitby Tim Hortons locations to speak out against franchise owners who plan to clawback paid breaks and employer-paid benefits following the increase in minimum wage.
As of January 1, Ontario’s minimum wage increased to $14 an hour, prompting some Tim Hortons’ franchise owners to take measures to reduce their costs by targeting employee benefits and breaks. Shame on those business owners. Was great to see Rick Saunders and Horace Jordan representing in Cobourg, you can't take the fight out of these retirees. Also there to lend a hand was Sid Ryan and Dave Mitchell the new President of Toronto's CUPE Local 79. Direct Action!
Wednesday, January 10 at 5:00PM Tim Hortons 970 Division St, Cobourg, Ontario K9A5J5 In regards to the infamous Tim Hortons letter from Ron Joyce Jr. & Jeri-Lynn Horton-Joyce, the son & daughter of the chain’s co-founders, Ron Joyce & the late Tim Horton, they are calling the shots from their winter home in Florida. While they sit pool side , join us as we celebrate with employees who recently reported that with unpaid breaks & having to pay 50% of the cost of benefits, their biweekly paycheck will actually be $51 lower than it was before the min wage hike. These crooks are turning profits off of this & blaming the min wage increase while they sip margaritas pool side at a US address. This event we hope will kick off a series of other actions at MultiNational Corporations who are keeping workers down in poverty wages. In partnership with Northumberland Labour Council and Durham Region Labour Council. December 10 is International Human Rights Day. On this day in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Each December 10th, it’s important for us to reflect on the important gains we have made in advancing human rights in our province that flow directly from this declaration. It’s also critical to recognize that we’re still a long way from true equality for all.
The principals enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights – a milestone document that proclaimed the absolute rights which everyone is inherently entitled to as human beings regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status – are as relevant today as they were nearly 70 years ago. While so many milestones have been achieved over the decades, we find ourselves today living in frightening times where human rights are increasingly under attack. With the recent resurgence of neo-Nazism and fascism, emboldened by the U.S presidential election, we must stand up for our own rights and the rights of others that are intended to protect us all. We’re so proud that CUPE members do this every day in our workplaces and communities across Ontario. For example, it’s thanks to the hard work of activists across the province, many of whom are CUPE members, that we’ve seen the creation of an Anti-Racism Directorate in Ontario, and at the federal level, the government is finally moving forward with an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. While it is important to recognize the significant gains made, we must remember that we still have a lot of work to do to achieve equality, justice, human rights and dignity for all. In Ontario, racial profiling by police is still alive through carding practices that are a clear human rights violation. Many Indigenous communities in our province lack clean water and other basic services that other communities take for granted. Women still earn only $0.72 for every dollar earned by a man and the gender wage gap is widening. LGBTQ2 people still face bullying and discrimination for their gender expression and sexual orientation. And people with disabilities continue to face huge barriers to simple participation that many others also take for granted. CUPE Ontario is proud to be a leader in the fight for human rights. We recognize that workers’ rights and equality rights are one and the same. We have a very diverse membership in our union and we are very proud to reflect that on our Provincial Executive Board in many ways including through our six designated equality representatives. With the active support of our over 260,000 members, we will continue to include the fight for equality and human rights in all the work we do. The 2017 Racial Justice & Human Rights Conference is taking place December 11-14, 2017 and is about Building Bridges & Building Power. Click here to register for this important event. Elections at this conference include: Aboriginal Council, Workers with Disabilities, Pink Triangle, Racial Justice, Young Workers and International Solidarity Committees. Sisters & Brothers, Comrades & Friends, As 2017 draws to a close, let’s reflect on the significant victories that we’ve accomplished together this year. Thanks to the work of CUPE Ontario members, our partners in labour and our community allies, we were successful in getting the Ontario government to pass Bill 148 and legislate real improvements for all working people. Thanks to all our work, the minimum wage is going up to $14/hour on New Year’s Day and $15/hour the following year. This will make a real difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers in our province including some of our own members. It also strengthens our ability to bargain better wages for all our members. Bill 148 also legislates equal pay for part-time workers doing the same work as full-time employees. When implemented, this will not only bring up wages for many of our part-time members, but will also stop employers from turning good full-time jobs into more part-time work to get away with paying people less. Along with these victories, Bill 148 also includes improvements to minimum vacation and emergency leave times, scheduling protections and changes to the Labour Relations Act that will make it a bit easier for people to join a union. This last year also saw the strength of CUPE members in Ontario standing up to their employers as an inspiration to the whole labour movement. In the face of more than a decade of hard bargaining our members have said, no more! Thirteen of our locals walked the picket line rather than settle for concession agreements or agreements that didn’t provide the gains their members needed. Their courage not only strengthened their locals, but put the rest of our employers on notice that we won’t be bullied into bad deals. CUPE is a union that fights and wins for our members! One of our proudest accomplishments of this year has been our work to get seniors living in long-term care the level of care they need. Our seniors are suffering. Despite the best efforts of staff, many of their basic needs are not being met. For example, staff have only five to ten minutes to help a resident with their morning routine. This includes waking, washing, dressing and use of the commode. Our parents and grandparents, those who built our communities and our Province, deserve so much better. Ontario’s seniors deserve a guaranteed minimum standard of care in their final years. That’s why we have worked with the NDP to bring forward Bill 33 (Time to Care Act.) The bill would make four hours of direct hands on care, each day, for residents in long-term care homes the law in Ontario. Thanks to the work of our members, joined by so many others in communities across Ontario, MPPs all across the province heard directly from more than 75,000 Ontarians asking them to support Bill 33. The work paid off and both the Liberals and the Tories were forced to support the bill on second reading. Now we just need to make sure that the bill continues to move forward and that we get it passed before the spring election. We now have a new message to MPPs on TimeToCareOntario. This holiday season, we need you to take a minute, to go to the site, and use this easy tool to tell your MPP to make sure Bill 33 becomes law before June. It would be great if you shared this through your networks as well. As we start thinking about 2018, we know we will have a busy year ahead of us. Next year we will have both Provincial and Municipal / School Board elections across Ontario – along with a host of other things. But there will be time to plan and think about those things in the New Year! We hope that over the coming month you will have some down time, some time away from work and from union activism, to relax and to spend time with people you love. For those of you who are about to begin some well-deserved holiday time, we hope it is filled with rest, joy and laughter. As a public sector union, however, we know that many CUPE members will remain hard at work over the holidays, serving our communities, across Ontario. We send our deep gratitude to all the snow plow operators; paramedics; hospital, long-term care and homecare workers; transit operators; hydro workers; shelter support staff, and social services and community agency staff, whose hard work and dedication, keep our province running all year round, but especially at times of the year when many others are away from their work. As we head into the new year, we send you our warmest wishes and look forward to all that we will do together in the year ahead. In solidarity, Fred Hahn, President Candace Rennick, Secretary-Treasurer |