“Greedy and hypocritical”: Company owned by a pension plan is taking away its own workers’ pension plan

TORONTO – DynaLIFE Labs, a company contracted by the Alberta government to privatize health care services, is trying to take away a pension plan from its employees. The twist? DynaLIFE’s majority shareholder is the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), a pension plan serving over half a million Canadians. In 2022, Alberta’s UCP government awarded…

CUPE Ontario pledges cross-sector support for the fightback against Ford’s plans for health care privatization

TORONTO – CUPE Ontario has pledged its full support to the coalition of five major health unions, including CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU/CUPE), as they gear up for a province-wide campaign of resistance to the Ford government’s “three-step plan” for privatizing hospital care services. “Our union will raise its voice on behalf of…

Ford’s plan to expand private clinics in Ontario will cost patients dearly, risk lives and significantly worsen staffing shortages, healthcare unions say

TORONTO – Five major Ontario healthcare unions are calling on the Ford government to not move forward with its plan to siphon provincial funding from public hospital care and hand it to private, for-profit surgical clinics, a risky venture that will cost Ontarians dearly and damage access to public care. The unions – CUPE/OCHU, Ontario…

Giving is the spirit of the season say Hamilton St. Joe’s hospital workers following $14,000 donation to community groups

HAMILTON, ON – For the fourth consecutive year, 2200 front-line hospital staff at St. Joseph’s Healthcare represented by CUPE 786 are giving back to the community. Seven local organizations that provide supports for families and individuals in need were recently presented with donations totalling $14,000 from CUPE 786. “We know that some local charities and…

Premier Ford ‘pushing public system to collapse’: five largest health care unions join forces, make SOS appeal to save our public hospitals

TORONTO – In a historic moment, Ontario’s five largest health care unions have joined forces, issuing an SOS appeal to Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones: your plan is failing – take action and adopt our solutions to stabilize Ontario’s crashing health care system today. The PC “plan” is failing miserably. The unions…

CUPE and Kingston paramedics call for the immediate addition of 180 hospital staff at Kingston’s hospital to deal with COVID wave and flu surge; 1000 more hires in 2023 just to maintain service levels

KINGSTON, ON – Kingston Health Sciences Centre must immediately add 180 full-time staff to deal with higher patient volumes from this fall and winter’s COVID-19 wave and pressing flu season or patient care will continue to decline and ambulance offload delays will increase, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and OPSEU/SEFPO paramedics said at…

CUPE Windsor-Essex paramedics call for more provincial funding to alleviate ambulance shortage crisis; endorse emergency declaration by Essex County

WINDSOR, ON – The provincial government needs to take decisive action and fund the solutions that will alleviate the ongoing crisis of ambulance shortages in Essex County, says the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 2974. “As paramedics, we have been struggling to serve our communities in Essex County, due to chronic understaffing and persistent…