Gélinas calls on province to increase wages for all PSWs

A Liberal government plan to increase the wages of personal support workers in Ontario is flawed, says NDP health critic France Gélinas.

Speaking in the Ontario Legislature on Monday, the Nickel Belt MPP said the Liberal's plan to increase wages of some PSWs left too many people out.

“All PSWs should receive the promised raise increase for all of the hours that they work,” she said. “So many of them are falling through the big holes left behind this Liberal promise.”

The measures were included in the April budget that was defeated by the NDP and Progressive Conservatives last spring, prompting the June election. The vote gave the Liberals a majority government.

It would increase the wages of 34,000 of Ontario's 100,000 PSWs by $4 an hour by 2016. Wages for those PSWs will be increased, while minimum wage for those personal support workers will be set at $14 per hour in 2014-2015 and rise to $16.50 next year.

But Gélinas said the Liberal plan omits too many workers, who will continue to be underpaid well into the future. For example, she said the raise would go to PSWs who bathe their clients, but not to the ones who just feed them.

“Those who work in community mental health don't -- and most PSWs don't – see the increase applied to their travel time from client to client,” she said. “For all of these PSWs, this Liberal promise is a broken promise. Why did the minister choose to leave so many of those PSWs behind?”

In response, Eric Hoskins, minister of health and long-term care, said the Liberal plan is at lease beginning to address the problem of fairness for PSWs.

“I know many Ontarians rely on them for support,” he said in the Legislature on Monday. “That's why I am so proud, Mr. Speaker, to be part of a government that has made a commitment to PSWs who, frankly, are not adequately compensated.”

But Gélinas said all PSWs should get the same increase, and that the Liberal plan doesn't address other problems, such as the fact PSWs don't get compensation for travel.

“We're talking home care – they all have to travel,” Gélinas said. “PSWs still don't know how many hours they will have, if they work next week, and they are still receiving different wages for work of equal value.

“Why doesn't the minister take the opportunity to fix, rather than continue with, this broken model for vital, but low-paid, health-care workers?”

But Hoskins said the New Democrats were in no position to pass judgment on Liberal efforts to help PSWs.

“On this matter, the NDP has no authority,” he said. “And that's because it wasn't in your platform, but it was in our budget that you voted against.

“Mr. Speaker, we've added three million additional PSW hours in this province. We've added 2,500 new PSWs in our long-term care homes in the last five years. I'm not going to take lessons from the NDP when it comes to our PSWs.”