Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Making Headway

This past year has been a very active one for CLAC in Ontario advocating for members, with key successes along the way

By Ian DeWaard, Ontario Director

Healthcare

For many years, CLAC has provided a Professional Legal Assistance program for RNs and RPNs, which covers their legal costs in connection to an investigation in the performance of their duties. Later this year, personal support workers (PSWs) will become eligible to participate in a professional association, which will have the power to discipline its members for professional misconduct. To support them, we have extended protection to registered PSWs—CLAC is the first union to provide PSWs with legal support. We’ve also doubled the coverage to $30,000.

CLAC has long been advocating to expand WSIB protection (workers’ compensation for injury or illness in the workplace) to employees in retirement homes and made it a key proposal in all retirement home contract negotiations. Recently, in a breakthrough interest arbitration decision, members employed by Whispering Pines Residence were awarded mandatory WSIB coverage. This win at the bargaining table emboldens us to push even harder for a negotiated fix to the problem so that all retirement home workers obtain this necessary coverage.

Northern Opportunities

Members employed in the construction industry continue to see increased work opportunities in northern Ontario. CLAC’s unique approach to labour relations leads to safer workplaces, more productive work communities, and more hospitable work environments, and we want to spread that word to owners and purchasers of construction.

In September, we launched a six-month marketing campaign to demonstrate why CLAC members are the best suited for major mining and infrastructure projects. Recently, we went to Thunder Bay to meet with local members, Indigenous training and employment agencies, and a variety of other construction industry stakeholders.

Political and Industry Engagement

We’ve been very active in a range of government and industry relations activities over the summer. Key meetings were held with

• the Office of the Ontario Fire Marshal and the Ontario Solicitor General regarding the Ontario firefighter certification regulation.

• Patrice Barnes, parliamentary assistant to the minister of labour, immigration, training, and skills development, who toured CLAC’s Hamilton-area Construction Bootcamp program.

• Premier Doug Ford, who visited members employed by Optimum Mechanical Solutions Inc. at an Ottawa job site.

• staff for Natalia Kusendova-Bashta, Ontario’s new minister of long term care, to acquaint her team with the issues experienced by members in this sector.

• policy staff of the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training, and Skills Development to propose labour reform in Ontario’s next Working for Workers legislation.

We also attended the 125th annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference, with more than 3,300 other participants. And at a media conference, we conveyed CLAC’s gratitude to Premier Ford and MPP David Piccini for being awarded over $750,000 in Skills Development Fund grant monies, which will be used to further boost CLAC’s wildly successful Construction Bootcamp program.

The past year has been gratifying as we made headway on some key initiatives for members. We look forward to continuing our work on your behalf in 2025!

Making Headway

You might be interested in