Workers at Sistering in west Toronto (OPSEU 540) took strike action and walked off the job on Monday.
Sistering is a 24/7 community drop-in service that provides supports for women and gender-diverse people in need, including harm reduction services, food access, counselling, and healthcare.
The roughly 70 workers at Sistering join another 4,500 other social service workers all across Ontario organized with OPSEU, who are currently on strike or locked out as they fight for the backpay they’re owed as a result of Bill 124, better funding for services, better wages for workers, and more.
Spring Magazine spoke with Sistering workers and community supporters on the picket line.
Worker perspectives: Fighting burnout and underfunding
Patricia Crooks, a community support work assistant at Sistering, spoke about why the workers are on strike, detailing the on-the-ground impacts of underfunding and suppressed wages on both workers and the communities they serve.
Patricia: My name is Patricia Crooks and I’ve been a community support work assistant for the past ten years.
We’re on strike for two reasons – I call it “the two-headed dragon.” One is for our 6.5% that the Ford government owes us: when Bill 124 was repealed, Ford refused to give us the money, so I call it our stolen fund that he still has for us. The other half that I think is very, very important is the funding for the organization that we work for, and all the other organizations that are out rallying right now — 27 other organizations, 4,500 workers are out there right now.
The reason why we’re fighting for the resources is because we’re a 24-hour service. We’re a multi-faceted organization and we have things like harm reduction, we serve meal programs three times a day, we have case workers, housing workers, we have a small respite upstairs, as well as staff in here – amazing staff.
My colleagues, most of them work 2.5 jobs – most of them work two jobs and then a half a job somewhere on the weekend. We’re getting burnt out. We don’t have the funding to hire anybody basically. We’re struggling to keep the program running, we’re struggling to provide for our participants. When people are burnt out, the ones who get the repercussions of it are the participants we work with, so we’re asking Ford to step up and fund this organization.
Our Executive Director is amazing. She’s tried her best to apply for funding and still has not received it. We’re tired of being sick and tired.
Community perspectives: Workers are fighting for all of us
Two community supporters on the picket line, Tala and Remi, spoke about the important work Sistering does, the impact that it has on the community, and what it will take to win against the Ford government. Tala, a teacher with the Toronto District School Board, also drew important links between the OPSEU social services fight and upcoming teacher and education worker collective bargaining.
What brings you to this picket line today?
Tala: I’m Tala, and I’m a teacher at a nearby high school. I do see these struggles connected with the secondary schools and the elementary school staff who are going into bargaining. Our contracts are up against a government that is very anti-labour, anti-worker, anti-people, and it’s really disheartening because Ontario keeps electing these governments. So I am just showing support for these linked struggles.
Remi: I’m Remi, Tala’s daughter. I’m here because I’m a member of the community.
I live in Dovercourt, Bloordale, whatever you wanna call the neighbourhood. I’ve seen the work that Sistering does to be a pillar of the community, uplift the community, and ensure that the people in the community are safely taken care of and are able to access resources that are an essential human right, like food, water, safe shelter, and the ability to be kept safe from the toxic drug supply.
I know that Ford’s government is eager to defund places like this because he wants to be able to crowd out these neighborhoods so that he can sell it off to his developer buddies. But it’s not just Ford. It’s an issue of the system we live in under capitalism. There is a structural incentive to keep people on the margins as a way to keep labour cheap and have increased profit margins. But it’s also a scare tactic for people to be afraid to step out of line or look outside of capitalism for answers and solutions. It’s absolutely absurd and hurtful, and just atrocious what he’s doing to our communities and what the structure does to our communities and to our relationality as people.
As a racialized woman, as a brown woman, Sistering has a special place in my heart because I know that the majority of people who access Sistering are racialized women, and I know that also the people who work there are typically racialized women. It’s really frustrating to know that sometimes the only people who are there for us and for each other are racialized. And then to see Ford try to tear Sistering down and to underpay — “underpay” isn’t even the word, because even a 6.5% wage increase [what workers affected by Bill 124 were awarded] isn’t enough — but I think my own identity in relation to Sistering might be one of the draws for me.
What will it take to win in both the education and social service sectors, and in this strike by OPSEU workers?
Tala: My understanding of this particular legislation is that it’s illegal [Bill 124, which was indeed declared unconstitutional]. The other workers had their funding restored.
There’s a clear kind of “divide and conquer” with this closing of safe injection sites and community recreation. I mean, all these things have been going on, like an erosion, for a long time. It’s important to support each others’ struggles and to not give up.
Whether we can win particular battles, I don’t know, but it really means a lot to meet the needs of people who are really facing multiple oppressions and struggles — like the women who use this service — and it’s an attack on women. It’s an attack on racialized women. I think that the broader public who is fortunate enough not to be directly affected by any of these things doesn’t realize that we’re talking about the safety and health of the community as a whole. These ideas of the public good are taking a serious hit these days.
Remi: I think we need more support from the community. I think there’s a lot of ignorance around the work that Sistering does. I happen to know a bit about it because my mother‘s a teacher and so we visited Sistering a couple times to volunteer. I think that a lot of people in the neighbourhood don’t know the extent to which Sistering is upholding this community, and so I think we need more support from the community. But on a larger scale, we need capitalism to end.
You can visit the Sistering picket line at 962 Bloor St W in Toronto every day between 7am and 9pm. The workers are also holding a picket line party on Friday, May 29 between 2pm and 9pm.
Not in Toronto? Find a picket line near you using the OPSEU picket finder tool.
Authors
Did you like this article? Help us produce more like it by donating $1, $2, or $5. Donate
