Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today we observe Holocaust Remembrance Day to mark the liberation of  Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp, and to remember the victims of the holocaust. Today is also an opportunity to recognize that hate crimes targeting Jewish, Muslim, and black Canadians are on the rise and that we have a collective responsibility to resist modern anti-Semitism and hate…

“Get back to class!”: CUPE urges government MPPs to visit Ontario classrooms rather than consult about increasing class sizes

On the first-ever International Day of Education (January 24), the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents 55,000 education workers in Ontario, is calling on the Ford government to send its MPPs back to the classroom to learn how education really works for students, teachers, and education workers in the province’s schools. CUPE makes…

“Help us,” urge staff with no pension and low wages at teachers’ pension plan owned Hamilton care home

HAMILTON, ON – Direct care staff with no pension and low wages employed at Amica Dundas, a Hamilton-area care home owned by the powerful Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) have taken the unprecedented step of appealing to the teachers’ fund board to help them achieve better working conditions.   Responsible investing principles, such as social and…

Office and Clerical workers at Markham Stouffville Hospital vote to unionize

MARKHAM, ON – Office and Clerical workers at Markham Stouffville Hospital have joined the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) after a certification vote held Tuesday, January 22, 2019. The 257-person unit consists of hospital Receptionists, Secretaries, Clerks, Transcriptionists, Coders and various Clerical positions. Organizer Deb Oldfield was happy to welcome the group into CUPE. “Our health care…

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Today we mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day, celebrating the work of the civil rights movement which he helped to lead and honouring his legacy by continuing the fight for racial and economic justice. Throughout his life, Dr. King worked closely with organized labour. His last days were spent standing in solidarity with black sanitation…

Price for deficit slaying, further tax cuts for the wealthy will be paid with the suffering of the ill and the elderly, union cautions

KINGSTON, ON – Kingston’s largest health care union, today, called on the Ontario government to shelve its proposed revenue cuts and fund Ontario hospitals at their real costs. The call comes just days before committee hearings on the province’s 2019 budget are slated to begin on Monday.   Hearings are taking place in eight communities across…

Cut to LHINs cynical optics for PCs, when focus should be proper funding for hospitals and ending hallway medicine

TORONTO, ON – With reports that Ontario’s PC government is moving to chop the province’s health planning networks (Local Health Integration Networks or LHINs), the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU), today urged the Premier and health minister to stop and focus instead on proper funding for hospitals and ending hallway medicine.   “Rather than…

Kingston shut out of budget hearings, but hospital union holds media conference Friday to kick-start local discussion

KINGSTON, ON – On Monday, provincial budget hearings begin in eight communities across Ontario. However, Kingston isn’t one of them. That’s why the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) 1974, which represents 1,600 hospital staff at Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC), is holding a media conference on Friday, January 18 (2019) at 11:00 a.m., at…