TORONTO, ON – The Ontario Compensation Employees Union (OCU/CUPE 1750) is calling out the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) and the Ford government after confirmation that 26 document management jobs will be eliminated and handed to Iron Mountain, a private company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.
The workers provide essential support to Ontario’s workplace safety system. The layoff notices will take effect July 16, just one week after members returned to work following a legal strike.
“This government says it wants to protect Ontario jobs, but when it mattered, they sided with a U.S. multinational corporation over public workers,” said Henry Gaspar, president of OCU/CUPE 1750. “I specifically reached out to Minister Piccini and urged him to intervene. Instead, he defended the outsourcing. That’s unacceptable.”
Although Iron Mountain highlights its Canadian operations, it is a U.S.-based multinational corporation. Its involvement in processing sensitive information inside a public agency central to Ontario’s workplace safety system is deeply troubling. This decision to contract out unionized public sector work to a private company sets a troubling precedent that puts corporate profit ahead of public service.
“This is how the WSIB responds after a difficult and historic strike – by cutting some of the lowest-paid workers with no explanation about how it will help injured Ontarians,” said Gaspar. “The WSIB is acting like a private insurance company, focused only on cost-cutting, when it was meant to be more than that.”
OCU/CUPE 1750 has consistently signalled a willingness to work with WSIB’s leadership to avoid cuts. Despite this, and despite options for in-house solutions, the agency – with the Ford government’s support – is threatening its first major layoffs in recent memory.
“Our members just walked back through the doors, and now they’re being targeted again,” said Gaspar. “We’re ready to work on real solutions. But if the WSIB goes through with this plan, we will fight to defend every one of these jobs.”
OCU/CUPE 1750 remains committed to protecting public service workers, defending good jobs, and holding public agencies – and the governments behind them – accountable for decisions that hurt Ontario communities.
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For more information, contact:
Jesse Mintz, CUPE Communications Representative
416 704 9642
[email protected]
