Frontline staff with CUPE Local 3314 and public health nurses with the Ontario Nurses Association Local 31 are back at work as Hastings Prince Edward Public Health Unit ratified both its agreements on Wednesday.
CUPE Local 3314 returned to work that same day while the public health nurses returned to work on Monday.
“I’m very pleased that we’ve reached agreements with CUPE and ONA and delivery of regular public health services can resume,” Chair of the Board of Health Jan O’Neill tells media members.
“As we have reiterated throughout the bargaining process, we aim to balance the requests of our unionized staff and needs of the organization, the taxpayers and most importantly, our clients.”
Both of the new deals are three year deals with a three percent wage increase for the first year that is retroactive to January 1, 2023. There will then be a two and a half percent wage increase for each of the remaining two years.
Hastings Prince Edward Public Health also says that there are “enhanced benefits” as part of the new deals struck.
O’Neill says she believes the board negotiated in good faith.
“I think this is a learning experience for all involved because I believe this is a new experience for this board dealing with strikers and negotiations,” O’Neill said.
“I would like to say that I think they did a very good job and I appreciate and respect the decision of the two members that resign. They obviously had their personal reasons for doing so.”
Two Board of Health members representing Prince Edward County, John Hirsch and Kate McNaughton, resigned from the board citing a lack of transparency in the ongoing negotiations with the labour unions.
A question was asked if that critique was a fair one.
“I would say that there’s two board members who resigned under the suggestion that there was transparency issues, but the rest of the board seemed quite solid so I think it depends on who you ask to get a proper answer to that question,” Director of Corporate Services, David Johnston, said to media members.
“We’re confident we do everything we can to provide transparency and all of our actions, especially when it comes around finances. Because we’re a government organization, there’s a lot of audits, there’s a lot of form filling, it’s very bureaucratic to ensure that the money that we are provided by the taxpayers is used for the appropriate services and so we have confidence that we’re doing that appropriately.”
Johnston did note that if there could be a lesson of adding some additional transparency that the board would look to implement that in the future.
Throughout the ONA strike, the health unit had presented a two percent wage increase and did not move from that offer until the new deals were presented and ultimately ratified.
The health unit says they were able to increase the wage percentage thanks to wage savings from the ongoing labour stoppage.
“You can imagine that with so many people out, there is extensive wage savings, and we were able to accumulate enough of those savings to come back and change the deal specifically in the first year, closer to something that was reasonable for ONA.” Johnston said.
In regards to the budget, the health unit says there would be limited impact in the first year but something that will have to be looked at for next year.
“The Ministry (of Health) only provided 1% funding for each of those years, and offering a two and a half percent increase. There’s a discrepancy there. So we have to work within our means,” Johnston explained.
“But that’s not new for public health, we often feel like we don’t have all the money to do all the things we want and we just find a way to make it happen.”
While staff and nurses return at the health unit, services aren’t back at 100% just yet.
“We won’t be able to reserve resume full services as of today,” Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Ethan Toumishey tells media.
“There will be further communication and there will also be an updated service disruption notice on our website. So we will be working as fast as we can to get all of our operations back up”
