Essential Workers Deserve Better
CLAC has consciously, consistently, and wisely chosen to put forward positive, constructive, and just proposals and policy solutions to the challenges that essential workers face
By Paul Wilson, Research Director
For the last 11 years in my role as CLAC’s research director, I have advocated for better wages, benefits, and working conditions for essential workers in sectors such as healthcare, construction, firefighting, and the grocery industry. Through numerous interactions with government officials and the writing of submissions to governments, I have sought to voice the concerns, needs, and priorities of our essential service members.
Unfortunately, some governments chose to ignore these calls. Instead, they implemented wage suppression measures in the public sector, perpetuated chronic underfunding of public services, and ignored or denied the reality of worker shortages that threaten the sustainability of our healthcare system or compromise the delivery of essential volunteer fire services in rural areas that rely on them.
The effort to achieve justice for workers is not an easy undertaking. Advocacy requires an immense amount of patience and perseverance because government policy is often slow to change for the better.
Counter-productive government policies and inaction are frustrations one has to deal with frequently. I remember meeting with a past government official where we were proposing that more money be allocated where it was needed most in long term care: front-line staffing and patient care. Our proposal received a brisk refusal. Undeterred, we continued on with our efforts.
For its part, CLAC has consciously, consistently, and wisely chosen to put forward positive, constructive, and just proposals and policy solutions to the challenges that essential workers face. As the saying goes, you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Staying positive and productive despite setbacks and disappointments is essential to eventually realizing success. Long after I retire at the end of June 2023, CLAC will continue to press its case, at the bargaining table and in the public domain, that essential workers deserve better wages, benefits, and working conditions.
In a recent submission to the Ontario government, for example, we called for better wages for all healthcare workers, the extension of WSIB coverage to retirement and group home workers, more support for homecare workers, continued funding for apprenticeship and skilled trades training, and an improved provincial tax credit for volunteer firefighters. CLAC will continue to push hard for these changes.
It would be remiss of me not to thank all of CLAC’s essential workers for the outstanding work they perform daily, often under trying and stressful conditions. You have my sincere appreciation and admiration.
It is my never-ending hope that someday soon you will receive the increases, recognition, and respect that you deserve. And I know that CLAC will continue to work diligently on your behalf to achieve these just ends.