Finance Minister Dwight Duncan's spring budget called for a two-year
freeze on wages for public sector workers to help fight a record
provincial deficit.
Ontario nurses have won their case in the face of unfair wage freezes.
This year, Finance Minister Dwight Duncan's spring budget introduced
legislation that would force a two-year wage freeze on 350,000
non-unionized public-sector workers, which would also apply to unions
whose contracts expire in the next two years.
An independent arbitrator overruled the wage freeze and awarded raises
to 17,000 Ontario nurses. The arbitrator, Kevin Burkett, determined that
the provincial government's wage freeze was "unreasonable" and gave
nurses a pay increase of 4 percent over two years. Now, nurses and staff
at over 60 Ontario hospitals will see a rise in pay in line with
inflation. Additionally, hospital CEOs were handed a 60 day deadline to
start to address the problem of nursing shortages.
In the hours following the nurses' victory, Premier Dalton McGuinty
called on public servants to assume the responsibility of fiscal
restraint. At a news conference in Hamilton, he told the media, "There
is no more money."
The ruling was praised by Sharleen Stewart, head of the Service
Employees International Union (which represents over 50,000 Ontario
healthcare workers), saying, "The ruling is balanced and puts the
interests of patients first." However, some fear the effect that this
ruling will have on Ontario's attempts to reign in a $24.7 billion
deficit.
According to healthcare experts and union leaders, the ruling could
force Ontario hospitals with tight budgets to make cuts in front-line
patient care in order to make those pay raises, since the government has
made it clear that it will not provide any funds for wage increases over
the next two years. Tom Closson, president of the Ontario Hospital
Association, which represented hospitals in the latest arbitration case,
said the only way the government can impose a two-year wage freeze on
Ontario?s 750,000 employees who bargain collectively is by introducing
legislation. "If the ruling sets a precedent for the sector," Closson
said, "the province?s 154 hospitals would have to find $280-million in
savings this year alone to cover the cost of an across-the-board wage
increase. Overall, wages account for about 70 per cent of a hospital?s
operating costs."
The Premier contextualized the proposed wage freeze, reminding reporters
that members of the provincial legislature have frozen their pay, and
saying, "So, we are doing our part to demonstrate responsibility in an
era of fiscal constraint. Again, I would make an appeal to those
employed in the public sector to assume that responsibility as well."
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath has criticized the proposed pay freeze as
doomed legislation. She preferred a restraint program to curtail more
extravagant expenditures in the healthcare system. ?You can?t ask the
frontline workers like nurses and people that change the bedding of
people in long-term care, for example, to take a wage freeze while
you?re allowing CEOs to increase their six-figure salaries to
seven-figure salaries, while you?re allowing consultants to make off
with all kinds of precious health dollars." Horwath said. "It was a
restraint package that wasn?t going to work in the first place.?