Leah Casselman, President
Ontario Public Service Employees Union
100 Lesmill Road
Toronto, Ontario
M3B 3P8

Dear Sister Casselman:

Hospital Emergency Day of Action, February 13

The unions affiliated to the Ontario Federation of Labour stand in full support of OPSEU and the health professionals who are fighting for an end to the critical shortage of staff in our hospitals and a new collective agreement.

Your members have been working without a contract for almost a full year in Ontario hospitals that have been starved of cash and staff. OPSEU members deserve better than this. Ontario’s health care system deserves better than this. The Ontario Hospital Association, as employer, has impeded contract talks unnecessarily and created confusion in hospitals for staff, patients and hospital administrators.

As the Day of Action approaches, the OFL stands in solidarity with these 5000 OPSEU members who provide so many of the vital, often life-saving functions in our health care system: x-ray technologists, respiratory therapists, physiotherapists, lab technologists, pharmacists, nuclear medicine technologists, MRI technologists and over 90 other important professions.

The OHA has been given a reasonable alternative to the Day of Action on February 13 - if it agrees to a single unrestricted arbitration for OPSEU bargaining units at all 40 hospitals, the Day of Action will be cancelled. OPSEU has called upon the Premier, Ernie Eves, to intervene in this unnecessary stalemate to alleviate anxieties for patients and hospitals.

If the OHA and the Premier do nothing to resolve this conflict, the OFL will call upon the province-wide Solidarity Network to join these OPSEU members on the Day of Action, February 13.

In solidarity,

Wayne Samuelson
President, Ontario Federation Of Labour

c.c. E. Birkett-LaValley, I. Harris, OFL Executive Board and Council
The Hon. E. Eves. Premier of Ontario
Ontario Hospital Association