Regent Park Community Health Centre (RPCHC) has been a pillar of healthcare for the Regent Park community in Toronto for over 50 years. The centre has a long history of providing health and social care to marginalized communities and currently provides case management, primary care, harm reduction, and many other essential services to this high-need area of Toronto. Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) Local 5115 represents 115 workers at RPCHC. These workers have worked front-line through the COVID-19 pandemic, only to be continuously disrespected by both their employer and the Ford government’s repression of healthcare workers. Workers are demanding fair compensation and respect in order to continue their essential work.
Bargaining issues
Workers at RPCHC are demanding fair wages, psychological safety language, and increases in benefits. The final demands are a two-year contract, with a four percent wage increase each year, and a change in our benefits packages to increase the spending on services such as RMT, chiropractic, and physiotherapy, which have not changed in 30 years. Workers are also demanding a change to the psychological safety language to prioritize transparency and create a psychologically safe workplace, and for workers who were employed while Bill 124 was in effect a 3 percent increase in wages for the first two years, and 3.5 percent increase for the third year.
RPCHC senior management has refused all of the above demands. They have countered with a two percent increase in wages each year. In a last-minute email to all staff right before the union meeting, the ED urged everyone to take the deal as it would be the “final offer.” This offer is a slap in the face to many front-line workers who have been struggling with an inflation rate of 3.5 percent. This tactic is nothing other than mere bullying from senior management, who claim to care about poverty while paying some staff at RPCHC poverty wages.
The main argument the ED uses to justify the refusal to increase wages is that the centre simply does not have enough money to support the increase. While RPCHC is a non-profit and relies both on public funding and private donors, the ED’s’ claims of insufficient funds seem dubious in light of the recent changes that have been implemented during the bargaining process at RPCHC.
Senior management has hired an anti-union, Bay Street lawyer to bargain the new contract. This signalled to the workers a more confrontational approach on the part of management. While the lawyer argued that the staff were selfish for wanting a wage that kept up with inflation, management gave themselves an eight percent increase in their own wages over the last two years. Apparently, there is money to fight against the worker’s demands and give themselves raises, but there is no money to meet the minimum of what workers’ are asking for.
Working conditions
The senior management team is hell-bent on “organizational restructuring” which has caused a lot of unease and anxiety among the teams at RPCHC. In the last year, both the Community Health Director and Community Health Manager were dismissed unceremoniously, and seemingly without cause.
Both of these women were strong advocates for the Community Health programming and ground-floor model that makes RPCHC unique. These programs make the services in a community health centre more accessible to vulnerable clients who face many barriers in the healthcare system. Management’s justification for their dismissal, which includes a dedicated employee of over 30 years, is that they needed to “restructure” and take money from somewhere, i.e. their salaries.
The restructuring dismissed two longstanding employees to create three additional middle management roles. The hiring process for one manager was outsourced to a hiring agency that would require the centre to pay for the process instead of completing the hiring themselves.
Due to the community health manager and directors’ dismissal, approval for certain work and services must now come from the ED and the clinical director. These changes have created many delays in essential services for RPCHC clients and have caused anxiety and unease in workers across the many teams. The front-line staff have not been able to provide consistent services for clients, often waiting over a month for approval of resources. While many grievances have been filed, little action has been taken to improve these delays by the senior management. While it is unclear what the end goal of these changes is, many staff are left with the fear that these programming changes are not for the betterment of their clients.
While wages are an important issue for workers at RPCHC, the stress of the “restructuring” process is proving to be a top issue for many at the centre. There has been a lack of transparency and staff consultation from senior management, who have been making these changes to teams that greatly impact their ability to provide effective services. Across the centre, the different teams have worked well together and have created a supportive environment that benefits both clients and workers.
Unfortunately, senior management seems to have a new vision that doesn’t include consulting front-line workers for their input on best practices. Ultimately, this will cause burnout among workers who already face high levels of emotional stress due to the nature of front-line healthcare and social services. The centre had already seen an exodus of staff in the last several months.
Bill 124 overturned
In Ontario in 2019, the Ford government passed Bill 124 which capped wage increases for many public sector workers at one percent over three years. This largely affected healthcare workers such as nurses, nurse practitioners, and other healthcare and social service workers, many of whom worked the front line during the COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, this largely affected a sector that is largely dominated by women and racialized workers, especially as doctors (predominantly a white male-dominated field) were not included in the wage caps.
In February 2024, Ontario’s Court of Appeal courts reaffirmed a lower court ruling that Bill 124 was unconstitutional as it violated unionized worker’s rights to collective bargaining. This is a huge win for workers, and RPCHC is bargaining for retroactive pay during these three years of suppression. The workers have been under wage suppression for the entirety of the pandemic when many put their lives at risk to serve the vulnerable populations that still need to access their healthcare despite a pandemic. This includes many unhoused folks and those who need access to many lifesaving services such as safe injection services.
Some workers at RPCHC, including some relief and all reception staff, at their top wage earn less than $24 per hour, a wage that is difficult to get by in Toronto, especially as food and shelter costs are rising. As an organization that claims to prioritize equity, they pay poverty wages to their reception staff who are predominately racialized women. These workers also have endured the pandemic front-lines, putting their health at risk and being compensated at vastly inadequate wages.
Better working conditions, better care
Community Health Centres provide a low-barrier healthcare option to many marginalised and vulnerable populations in the city. These centres need to be protected as healthcare in Ontario moves towards privatisation. Workers’ organizing is key to fighting to keep healthcare accessible and public. When workers organize, we can use our collective power to not only demand better from our employers but the healthcare system at large. Healthcare and social service workers know what is best for our clients, and it isn’t greedy bosses and a crumbling healthcare system. Healthcare workers deserve respect; Regent Park Community Health Centre workers demand better.
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