HAMILTON - About 200 employees of the Victorian Order of Nurses went on strike at midnight Aug. 30 in a fight to preserve quality home care.

Another 220 who work for the Community Care Access Centre voted more than 90 per cent in favour of strike action to back their contract proposals.

OPSEU President Leah Casselman told a joint meeting of the two locals Wednesday evening that: “This is a fight for your communities and for the people you serve.”

“This strike speaks volumes to the Harris government - and to the federal government as well - about the impact of cuts to health care.” 

The VON group, 80 per cent of whom are nurses who provide home care, are members of Local 269. They provide more than 65 per cent of the home care in the Hamilton-Wentworth area. Their chief contract issues are pay levels - which make it hard to attract and retain staff - and workload and scheduling problems caused by the staff shortages. The union has volunteered to provide minimal care to some of the most dependent clients during any work stoppage.

The CCAC staff belongs to Local 274. They include case managers who visit clients to assess the services they need: nursing care, homemakers, physiotherapists and other paramedical help, social workers and so on. Case managers are required to be affiliated with one of the professional colleges under the Health Care Professionals Act.

The CCAC group also includes support staff who deal with four contracted agencies who provide nursing care, seven home-making agencies and five who provide various therapists.

The impact of the combined strikes will be much slower referrals and delays in assigning home care.

Participants expressed concern that Millbrook’s inmates, a dangerous mix of maximum security prisoners, would be transferred to the new Lindsay superjail, which may well be privatized.

OPSEU President Leah Casselman told the demonstrators that correctional services must be accountable to the public, and they must be staffed with well trained professionals in all positions. Anything less is irresponsible and puts trusting communities in jeopardy, she said.

Sharon Dion, president of Citizens Against Private Prisons, said Corrections Minister Rob Sampson had held secret meetings with carefully chosen local politicians in Penetanguishine on Aug. 25. She said Sampson was using every possible way to bludgeon Ontario communities into accepting private prisons, even though their track record in the U.S. and Great Britain has been disastrous.

Other participants included OPSEU First Vice-President/Treasurer Len Hupet, Ontario Federation of Labour Vice-President Ethel LaValley, MPPs Peter Kormos (NDP) and Dave Levac (Liberal).

Dave Graves represented OPSEU’s Corrections Ministry Employee Relations Committee, and there were OPSEU members from correctional facilities in Rideau, Peterborough, Brookside, Lindsay, Mimico and Toronto. All of Region 3’s EBMs were there, as were members of the Peterborough municipal council.

The protest was organized by Local 341 President Terry Campbell and his chief steward Pete Wright.