Regional CCAC may face strike action

News Release
ONA

Bargaining between the Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) and the North West Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) has broken down, potentially leaving those in the northwest without access to a range of health care services that these health professionals arrange and coordinate.
ONA and the CCAC broke off talks during the second day of conciliation.
“Case Managers and Care Coordinators at the North West CCAC are the lowest-paid in the province,” notes ONA President Linda Haslam-Stroud, RN. “They work to ensure that the community receives home care services, they connect our vulnerable with services they need to stay healthy at home and they help those who can no longer remain at home find places in long-term care. In the past, any wage increases awarded to them were less than other health-care workers received, and this is hardly the way to treat health professionals who provide such vital services to northwestern Ontarians.”
Currently, North West CCAC Case Managers and Care Coordinators are paid a full $5.05 less per hour than their peers working at the CCAC in Hamilton, Ontario. North West CCAC management is paid comparably to their peers province-wide.
“Our members are incredibly dedicated to serving their community, their clients who need their help to receive home care or a nursing home bed,” says Haslam-Stroud. “They are highly skilled, educated and knowledgeable and the last thing they want is to be forced into a strike that will withdraw and/or delay services to their clients. The strike would cause already overflowing hospital emergency rooms additional backups as clients will have nowhere else to go to receive care, nor will there be an opportunity to discharge patients to the community or long-term care beds to free up much-needed hospital beds. Certainly their employer has to recognize the inequity that exists for these health professionals and step up and recognize their value.”
These ONA members also lack what is called the Professional Responsibility Clause - language in their collective agreement that ensures that there is sufficient staffing to ensure that they are able to provide care and services that meet standards set by regulatory colleges such as the College of Nurses of Ontario. The lack of the clause means that they have no recourse should they believe that their workloads are too heavy to ensure they’re able to provide quality, safe services to this community.