Security Personnel at St. Joseph’s Hospital Secure Much-Needed Wage Gains with New Contract

Hamilton, ON—Security personnel at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, recently ratified a three-year collective agreement providing them with much-needed wage increases to help offset the increased cost of living due to inflation.

The employees are represented by Security and Service Workers Union, CLAC Local 503. The union has represented them since 1997.

As one of the first collective agreements in the hospital sector to address the former moderation period under Bill 124, recently struck down by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, the agreement had few precedents to guide negotiators. The Ontario government is appealing the ruling to the Court of Appeal of Ontario.

“While Bill 124 is gone, the reality is that funding pressures are still very intense in the hospital sector,” says Michael Reid, CLAC representative and lead negotiator for the union. “As such, we were unable to reach a settlement that would see wage gains over inflation. But we were able to provide much more significant economic gains than could have been achieved under Bill 124, which restricted increases in the public sector to a mere one percent.”

The resulting agreement includes wage increases of two and three percent for a total of eight percent over the years 2021, 2022, and 2023.

“Increased funding is urgently needed to retain workers in this sector,” says Reid. “We are appalled that the Ford government has appealed Justice Markus Koehnen’s ruling on Bill 124, which said that the law infringed on the rights to collective bargaining and freedom of association. CLAC stands firmly behind these rights. They are an absolute necessity for the protection of workers.”