Ford government plans more low wages for women health care workers
Posted on August 9, 2022 in Health Delivery System
Source: TheStar.com — Authors: Xolisiwe (Connie) Ndlovu
TheSar.com – Opinion/Contributors
Aug. 9, 2022. By Xolisiwe (Connie) Ndlovu, Contributor
Ontario continues to pursue a low-wage strategy for the female health care workforce, a strategy that is quickly demolishing health care in Ontario.
Everywhere, women health-care workers are quitting. It is even worse in the home care sector. We have had enough of the violence, the irregular work weeks, the unpaid time between clients, the lack of pensions, and the low wages.
With inflation running at over 8 per cent and construction workers bargaining wage increases up to that level, the Ford government is sticking public sector workers — who are predominantly women — with a 1 per cent wage increase for three years.
Over 45,000 health care jobs are vacant in Ontario. You would think that the Ford government would learn a lesson from this. But no. Instead, it is doubling down on its low-wage strategy for health-care workers. It cannot recruit or retain hospital workers? No problem. Move patients to for-profit retirement homes where compensation is a fraction of hospital pay.
Here in home care, things are particularly bad. The previous PC government introduced compulsory contracting out for home care. Home-care service providers had to tender bids on publicly funded contracts to deliver home care services. Private companies promising to deliver low-cost services often won the bids and forced out many non-profit providers.
These low-cost contracts resulted in low wages for workers and a reduced standard of care for patients. The remaining non-profits had to adopt the same practices as the for-profit corporations and focus more on shiny proposals and less on the quality of care.
The result was chaos for local communities. Non-profit providers with decades of experience were cut out. The continuity of care was lost. Workers ended up with irregular hours and constantly sought better opportunities elsewhere — even though most loved their home care work.
In the end, the government was forced to end competitive bidding. There were too many problems. But it had already left its mark — widespread privatization and highly precarious work. Now, things are so bad that only about half of the needed home-care visits can even be scheduled.
Incredibly, the Ford government has quietly begun to examine bringing back competitive bidding. Instead of focusing on how to bring working conditions for the female home care workforce up to the hospital standard, it is looking at bringing back the system that destroyed home care 25 years ago.
Indeed, this is the plan for all of home care. The one area where the female home care workforce was able to maintain decent working conditions was in the Community Care Access Centres (now called Home and Community Care Support Services).
These organizations oversaw the contracted providers. Now the Ford government wants to get rid of the public oversight of the for-profit corporations providing home care and has refused to provide any assurance that these women home care workers will have any protection in the restructuring. On Sept. 1, the government will even bring in a regulation that will let the for-profit home care providers oversee themselves in some ways.
Is there any learning by the Ford government? We are facing a major staffing crisis in health care and nowhere more so than in home care. Yet this government continues to pursue a low-wage strategy for the female health care workforce, a strategy that is quickly demolishing health care in Ontario.
We need to end the war on women health care workers. We need a government that can help make home care an attractive place to work — not a worse place to work.
Xolisiwe (Connie) Ndlovu is a home care worker and the president of CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) 7977, representing home care workers in Toronto.
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2022/08/09/ford-government-plans-more-low-wages-for-women-health-care-workers.html
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living, women
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 9th, 2022 at 11:43 am and is filed under Health Delivery System. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
387 Responses to “Ford government plans more low wages for women health care workers”
« Older Comments | Newer Comments »
Recent Comments
I just couldn’t leave your website before suggesting that I really enjoyed the usual information an individual supply on your visitors? Is gonna be back often in order to investigate cross-check new posts
Hi would you mind staying which blog plarform you’re working with?
I’m planniing to sttart my own blog inn thhe neasr futrure buut I’m having a difficult time choosinng between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal.
The reason I askk iis because your desjgn seems
different then most blogs and I’m looking forr somethikng unique.
P.S Sorery for getting off-topic butt I had too ask! xnxx
Simply want to say your article is as amazing. The clarity in your post is just great and i can assume you’re an expert on this subject. Fine with your permission allow me to grab your feed to keep up to date with forthcoming post. Thanks a million and please keep up the gratifying work.
The clarity in your post is just nice and I can tell you are an expert in the subject matter.
I just sent this post to a bunch of my friends as I agree with most of what you’re saying here and the way you’ve presented it is awesome.
fantastic internet site, I could definitely go to your web page once more…acquired some really nice info.
Pausing with Esc lets players take a break mid-run. 753bbe01.
Your article helped me a lot, is there any more related content? Thanks!
Certainly. And I have faced it. Let’s discuss this question. Here or in PM.
Hi, do have a e-newsletter? In the event you don’t definately should get on that piece…this web site is pure gold!
Your thing regarding creating will be practically nothing in short supply of awesome. This informative article is incredibly useful and contains offered myself a better solution to be able to my own issues. Which can be the specific purpose MY PARTNER AND I has been doing a search online. I am advocating this informative article with a good friend. I know they are going to get the write-up since beneficial as i would. Yet again many thanks.
I do believe your audience could very well want a good deal more stories like this carry on the excellent hard work.
Great post. I was checking constantly this blog and I’m impressed! Very useful info specifically the last part 🙂 I care for such info much. I was looking for this certain information for a very long time. Thank you and good luck.
you’re in reality a just right webmaster. The web site loading velocity is incredible. It sort of feels that you’re doing any distinctive trick. In addition, The contents are masterpiece. you’ve performed a great process on this topic!
We can see that we need to develop policies to deal with this trend.
Woah this is just an insane amount of information, must of taken ages to compile so thanx so much for just sharing it with all of us. If your ever in any need of related information, just check out my own site!
We’re developing a conference, and it looks like you would be a great speaker.
I really like your writing style, excellent info , thanks for putting up : D.
Im impressed. I dont think Ive met anyone who knows as much about this subject as you do. Youre truly well informed and very intelligent. You wrote something that people could understand and made the subject intriguing for everyone. Really, great blog youve got here.
I wish I could craft such articles as this. Thank you very much.