MEDIA ADVISORY: CUPE Members working in Home and Community Care Support Services call on Ford Government for better wages and decent working conditions!

Event Information

Begins: 16 January 2024
Location: Toronto, ON

CUPE HCCSS workers’ media conference at 11 a.m. on Tuesday morning to present petition signatures to Ontario MPPs at Queens Park.

TORONTO, ON –/COMMUNITYWIRE/– A petition calling on the Ford government to negotiate a fair wage increase for CUPE members working in Home and Community Care Support Services has gained over 1700 signatures from front-line CUPE home and community care workers from across the province.

The Progressive Conservative government has recently set aside $5.4 billion in “contingency funding” for this fiscal year, which ends at the end of March. The Ford government must allocate a small portion of this funding to stop the wages of home and community care workers falling behind inflation and other health care workers. Anything less will only lead to home and community care falling further behind, at a time when there already is a capacity crisis in health care.

In 2023, Ontario’s Ministry of Health announced the latest reform proposed by Ford’s Progressive Conservative government, Bill 135, Convenient Care Act, which will amalgamate the 14 HCCSS organizations into one Shared Service Organization (SSO), further reforming an already broken system. Bill 135 perpetuates the fundamental problems in the health care sector and creates more uncertainty for home care workers. The Ford government’s wage demands will destabilize home and community care even more.

A media conference will be held on Tuesday, January 16th, where a delegation of CUPE HCCSS workers, as well as CUPE Ontario Secretary Treasurer Yolanda McClean, will bring a visual presentation of the hundreds of signatures to three Ontario MPPs on the steps of Ontario Legislature to bring forward to the Ford Government. 

WHO:
Yolanda McClean, CUPE Ontario Secretary-Treasurer, Brett Geneau, Representative of CUPE HCCSS workers on the CUPE Health Care Workers Coordinating Committee, and Maxine Laing, HCCSS Team Assistant and Unit Vice President for Mississauga Halton HCCSS CUPE Local 966

WHAT:
CUPE HCCSS workers’ Media Conference present over 1700 petition signatures calling on Ford Government for better wages to Ontario MPPs at steps of Queen’s Park

WHEN:
11 a.m., Tuesday, January 16.

WHERE:
Queen’s Park, 111 Wellesley St. W., Toronto

-30-

For more information, contact:

Shannon Carranco, CUPE Communications
514-703-8358
scarranco@cupe.ca