London Health Sciences Centre workers who have been excluded from Ontario’s pandemic pay increase protested the decision outside Victoria Hospital Friday.
The protest was a combination of LHSC health-care workers represented by UNIFOR Local 27 and OPSEU 106 not receiving the province’s temporary pandemic pay increase.
Those not benefiting from the wage support program include physical therapy assistants, maintenance workers, dietary workers and clerks, who all could be exposed to COVID-19.
“They work directly with the patients every day and risk … being exposed, and some have been,” said Sarah Omelia Muylaert, LHSC UNIFOR Union chair.
Muylaert said were it not for many jobs that are not included, the hospital could not run.
Premier Doug Ford announced the pay premium in April and has used it to recognize the sacrifices essential workers make as they fight the spread of COVID-19.
It included a $4 hourly raise over four months and a monthly bonus of $250 if they work more than 100 hours in a month.
“These people put themselves in harm’s way to care for our sick and vulnerable citizens,” Premier Doug Ford said in a statement when the pay was first announced.
For workers not getting the funds like Jamie Sweetman, who is an emergency department technician being kept off the list, the opposite message is sent.
“It was a shot right to the face because we are as front line as you can get, and to have us excluded and forgotten about really p—ed us off,” he said.
During his shift at the hospital, Sweetman is responsible for assisting with CPR and looking after patients who have been resuscitated in the emergency department.
“A lot of us go home every day, and it takes a while to let the stress of the day roll off you because we have to deal with the end of COVID sometime, and it’s not so great.”
Sweetman said it’s less an issue with money as it is being recognized for the work that they do.
“We work side-by-side with the doctors and the nurses, and we think there has been a huge gap in the inclusion of this temporary pandemic premium,” said Steve McCaw, medical radiation technologist and local preside of OPSEU 106.
The provincial government has said 350,000 workers are eligible for the pay premium.
Eligible employees included those who work at long-term care homes, shelters, social services, jails, respiratory therapists, mental health and addictions workers in hospitals and congregate care settings, public health nurses and paramedics.
— With files from Shawn Jeffords Canadian Press