Thursday, June 6, 2019

Wage Freeze will Increase PSW Shortage

Workers and seniors will suffer as a result

The decision by the Ontario government to restrict public sector compensation to one percent cannot be a one-size-fits all strategy. Take, for example, the current shortage of personal support workers (PSWs) in the province. Holding wages to one percent will exacerbate the current shortage, leaving nursing home residents and patients throughout the healthcare system with inadequate care.

Already, some long term care homes experience staffing levels as low as two thirds of what is called for in their staffing plan at certain times of the day. Most homes regularly work short.

Why? Because many PSWs have left the industry due to low wages and difficult and dangerous working conditions. When adjusted for inflation, wage rates have already fallen by just over 6 percent over the past 10 years for 83 percent of PSWs in Ontario long term care homes. A wage freeze will cause them to fall further behind, and cause more workers to seek work in other industries.

Our government should understand that when demand goes up, the price should also go up. If it fails to do so, there will be shortages. In this case, it is a worker shortage. If we can’t provide workers for the beds we have, how will we staff the beds that need to be built to end hallway medicine?

The current government inherited years of cut backs in healthcare. The proportion of the provincial budget that goes to healthcare has declined in recent years. If this trend continues, we will end up irreparably damaging our healthcare system. Ontarians have paid for these cuts, sometimes with their lives. The British Journal of Medicine determined that if the wait time in our emergency departments was reduced by one hour, it would save 150 lives per year in Ontario. This is one of the reasons why the Ford government pledged to end hallway medicine. If the government plans to keep that pledge, the healthcare system will need to build capacity in long term care, home care, and hospitals, it will need to recruit more PSWs and other workers to care for patients and residents.

In a recent submission to the Ontario government, CLAC encouraged the government to avoid a one-size-fits-all strategy regarding its proposal to cap compensation increases. The government did not heed this warning.

PSWs deserve better from this government, and so do many other workers who have been experiencing wage increases below the rate of inflation for many years.

Wage Freeze will Increase PSW Shortage

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