Nurses' Association to hold strike votes against CCACs

The Ontario Nurses' Association plans to hold strike votes in the coming weeks after bargaining with 10 Community Care Access Centres (CCACs) across the province has come to a standstill.

The North East CCAC, which covers the Sudbury area, was one of the 10 that, according to the nurses' union, “walked away from the (bargaining) table.”

“It appeared clear to ONA (Ontario Nurses' Association) that the employer never intended to bargain on salaries,” said the association in a press release. “The main focus of this dispute is wages. ONA is looking for normative wage increases and some minor increases in benefits and/or premiums. ONA is seeking the same salary increases that it has negotiated in all of its other major sectors, including hospitals, where many of our CCAC members work.”

In their own press release, Ontario's CCACs said they are committed to reaching negotiated collective agreements with the nurses' union.

“We value and respect all our employees, and are ready to return to the bargaining table at any time to negotiate a settlement,” said provincial spokesperson Megan Allen-Lamb, CEO of North Simcoe Muskoka CCAC, in a press release. “Ontario's CCACs are committed to the collective bargaining process and remain optimistic that we can reach negotiated agreements with ONA that are fair and reasonable to employees and consistent with our responsibility to provide high-quality service with the prudent use of public funds.”

Despite the public reassurances from the province's CCACs, Ontario Nurses' Association president Linda Haslam-Stroud raised her doubts about the bargaining process moving forward.

“Having taken a wage freeze in two of the three years of the last collective agreement, our members are looking for increases in line with our 57,000 other health-care professionals in our other health-care sectors,” she said in a press release.

“Adding insult to injury, these are the very same employers, including their CEOs, who have granted themselves salary increases that go far beyond anything they have offered to our union members.”