Nurses and MPP struggle for common ground

By Cecilia Nasmith

Horns were honking up and down Peter Street Friday, as Ontario Nursing Association members and their supporters – about 50 in all – protested the provisions of Bill 124 as they apply to that noble profession.

The demonstration outside the Port Hope office of Northumberland-Peterborough South MPP David Piccini was part of the ONA Day of Action to draw attention to the fact that the provisions of Bill 124 limit public-sector wage raises to 1% but allow exemptions for certain male-dominated front-line professions such as police and firefighters – but not for the female-dominated profession of nurses, who are front-line responders on the health-care front.

“The members and I were horribly disappointed with the arbitrated results of our contract,” ONA Local 105 president Sarah Cowin of Northumberland Hills Hospital said.

Cowin explained that the 1% raise, when you factor in increases to benefits, works out to slightly less than 1%.

Their hope was to get Bill 124 repealed and, if not, exempt health-care workers from the wage provisions.

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Individual walkers were eloquent in explaining why this move is important to them, like Karen McKay-Eden who carried one sign and wore another on her back.

The Port Hope resident is an RN at a Toronto hospital. She has a 38-year career behind her, and is aghast at the timing at play and – as per the sign she carried, which read, “Do NOT call me hero and pay me zero” - the words of Premier Doug Ford.
“He says if it was up to him, he would give us the bank. Well, he was the one who pushed through Bill 124, and he has to take responsibility for that.”

The sign McKay-Eden wore on her back was the artwork of a nurse who has been through the pandemic in Spain and feels similarly disrespected. It shows hands clapping, while a nurse accepts the applause with a back stabbed full of knives and scissors. It was used with the nurse's permission, and it says, “Doug Ford: Hold your applause, eliminate Bill 124 now.”

RN Amanda Lent carried her sign draped over a pool noodle, with her daughter beside her carrying a pool noodle and sign of her own.

Lent decried the gender aspects of failing to exempt a predominantly-female profession like nursing, while exempting predominantly-male professionals. “Inequality” is the word she used.

“It's not even so much about getting 1%. It's about the fact that we are not valued as a profession,” Lent said.

And as for that 1% - “we haven't had more than that in about a decade, on top of the fact that we can't even bargain fairly for a better wage because of Bill 124.”

RN Keith Laroux is seeing more and more males join him in this field all the time. But he does agree that the mostly-female profession is taken advantage of by the government.

“It's unfair to nurses, it's unfair to everybody that works in health care,” Laroux declared.

“The conditions we work in a lot of the time – it's sad to say it has taken a pandemic to bring to light what has been going on in long-term care.

“It has been going on a long time – the government clawing back and clawing back, giving us less and less, and asking us to do more and more.

“We just want to be treated fairly,” he said, pointing to the sign he carried that listed raises in excess of 2% for OPP and firefighters. It wasn't on his sign, but he would remind everyone of the 14% raise some MPPs got.

“It's just not fair. That's why we are here today,” Laroux said.

“I love my job. I love what I do. I love taking care of people. I don't love being treated this way because the government decided they want to save money, and we are expected to sit back and take it.

“I think they take advantage of that fact, because they know we care about people are we are not going to leave people to care for themselves. We will go in under any conditions, which we have been doing over the last three months.

“No matter what, nurses will still go in and do whatever they have to do. We care about our patients. We care about people in the community. They know about that, and they take advantage every time.”

“This is the first time in my 30-year career the nurses have gotten riled up enough to do something like this,” Cowin said.

“I have never been part of something like this before. Hopefully we are turning over a new page – I have met some influential people in the area form labour councils, and they are here supporting us. Hopefully we can be part of more of what they are doing as well.”

She's already experienced that kind of brotherhood over the winter, when she carried a sign that said, “ONA supports teachers” during the rotating picket lines outside local schools. And the teachers came through this week for the nurses, teachers like Allison and Chris Stark of Beatrice Strong Public School who brought along their son.

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Bill 124 applies to teachers as well, Chris Stark pointed out, so it's a good idea for various parties affected to stick together in the face of it.

Cowin was also pleased to welcome Canadian Union of Public Employees members from Northumberland Hills Hospital from non-nursing positions, like bargaining-unit head Sue Burnell who waved the pink CUPE flag with several colleagues.

“Every health-care worker will be affected by Bill 124,” Burnell declared.

“We are trying to put a stop to it, because we put our lives on the line every day and we think we deserve more than 1%. We're not even allowed to strike or take labour actions like everybody else is allowed to do. This is about the limit of what we can do – come out and hold up a flag or a sign and hope everybody listens.”

Piccini came out of his office after more than an hour of the picketing to welcome Cowin and several colleagues inside for a meeting. Both sides came out after a 45-minute discussion where it was made clear that the labour provisions of the bill will remain in place, but assistance to the community's nurses can take other forms.

“First and foremost, I thank the nurses for what they do every day. They are our heroes, our nurses,” Piccini stated.

He noted that there are provisions that can take a nurse beyond the 1% threshold, such as promotions and educational qualifications.

He commended them for not focusing exclusively on the 1% and for participating in a broader discussion that he termed “very productive.”

In his parliamentary work, Piccini said he deals with people who have lost 80% of their income, sometimes their entire livelihoods. He sees farmers who work dawn to dusk in spite of losing 20% of their quotas. He sees downtown businesses shuttered, sometimes for good.

Frankly, he said, “we've got a lot of people who would kill for a 1% increase, and I can't start picking winners and losers.”

On the other hand, Piccini would argue that his government has helped the nurses in other ways, such as increasing long-term-care beds in the community and substantial base-funding increases to hospitals.

He was also impressed with the issues nurses raised about such issues as personal protective equipment.

“I have great respect for our heroes, our nurses. I made a commitment to our nurses I would talk to them, and they have my word we are going to, as a government, continue to reform health care,” he pledged.

“I know we can find common ground.”

By way of follow-up, Piccini committed to a round-table with administration and nurses, “so administration can hear what the front line is saying.

“I take my lead from a premier that listens to people, that gives out his (phone) number, and I will fight for this community, even if we fundamentally disagree.”

Cowin agreed that the word “productive” might be used to describe the meeting.

“We didn't get the request we were asking for, which was to repeal 124,” she allowed.

“Honestly, I wasn't holding my breath thinking we would get that today, but we did have a very fulsome conversation on some things we were really, really wanting to talk about. He was very, very positive, and will take that back to the government.

“David wants to do a round table with nurses to see what we need to be able to do our jobs.”

One big item would be to change nurse-to-patient ratios to allow fewer patients per nurse, she said.

At Northumberland Hills Hospital, Intensive Care Unit RN Pam Sharman said, “we want to make sure people who come to our facility are treated with the utmost care and respect we can offer.”

This wish to render to best of care sometime wars with record-keeping and time limits. Add a large patient load, she said, and a nurse knows that when she goes home, she'll have nagging little thoughts that she could have done better.

“Cutting funding makes the whole situation worse,” Cowin added, especially given that Ontario has the largest population of any province.

NHH Critical Care RN Amanda Mayock said this is one reason Cobourg alone lost 50 RNs.

“At the end of the day, they go home knowing what they couldn't do for their patients.”

Sharman said that members of the public have recently learned just how bad things can get when Canadian Forces members worked in Ontario nursing homes to help overwhelmed staff and felt obligated to share all they had learned about those conditions.

“And all of a sudden, there's this huge uproar,” she said.

“How awful it has been in these environments for years, and it took the military saying something – I think that's what I was saying to him.”

Mayock recalled discussing the 1% issue with Piccini, and hearing him say that he couldn't take sides among the people of the public service.

“I think our main focus was taking this opportunity to have these better ideas and concerns expressed.”

Looking ahead to the round table, she anticipates an opportunity for more in-depth communication to result in better patient care.

“Patient-centred care leads to less time in hospital, it leads to more positive outcomes outside the hospital in the community,” Sharman added.

Cowin admitted that the nurses would have loved a raise in the vicinity of 5%, “but there are so many other things we are very, very passionate about.”