Unions representing some 70,000 hospital workers in Ontario are renewing their calls for the province to address staffing shortages contributing to recent emergency room closures, suggesting measures such as raising wages and putting in financial incentives to boost hiring.
The Ontario Council of Hospital Unions and SEIU Healthcare have sent a letter to Premier Doug Ford outlining a number of actions they say the province should take to reduce labour shortages in health care.
Those include repealing Bill 124, provincial legislation introduced in 2019 that limits wage increases in public-sector contracts to one per cent a year.
Those provisions were set to remain in effect for three years, and Ford has recently said he would take inflation into consideration during upcoming contract negotiations.
The unions have also issued an open letter to the Ontario Hospital Association, asking that it take several steps to improve transparency regarding the current crisis, as well as fill vacancies.
Neither the provincial government nor the OHA immediately responded to a request for comment.