PSWs in Ontario hospitals still waiting on permanent wage increase

``There's no excuse for this,'' said Michael Hurley, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees' Ontario Council of Hospital Unions.

Personal support workers at hospitals across Ontario have been waiting months to receive a wage increase promised by the government, with unions and hospitals saying a delay in instruction from the province had been holding up the payments.

The delay means many workers have effectively taken a wage cut, unions said, despite Premier Doug Ford announcing in March that the temporary $2 hourly raise brought in during the pandemic would be made permanent.

Several unions said they’ve been pressuring the government on the issue and note that the long-awaited provincial instructions have recently started arriving. They are now pushing the government to expedite payment of the missing wages and explain the delay.

“There’s no excuse for this,” said Michael Hurley, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ Ontario Council of Hospital Unions.

The wage delay has left workers feeling “misled, discouraged and undervalued” at a time when the hospital system is strained and several emergency departments have had to temporarily close for periods of time due to lack of staff, Hurley said.

“These aren’t feelings that we want them to have,” he said.

The wage enhancement was first introduced more than two years ago as a temporary measure to support health-care workers during the pandemic. It was repeatedly extended for months at a time until March, when Ford announced plans to make the raise permanent.

After that, CUPE said personal support workers in long-term care and social services continued being paid the higher hourly rate without interruption but that was not the case for hospital workers.