OPSEU has won official standing in the Walkerton Inquiry, Justice Dennis O’Connor announced this morning.

“Today’s announcement means OPSEU has the legal right to participate fully in the areas of most interest to our members,” said Tim Hadwen, OPSEU staff legal counsel.

The Inquiry is being divided into three parts, Hadwen said. OPSEU is granted different standing in each:

1. The causes of the Walkerton events apart from Government practices: the union has the standing needed to protect the interests of directly-involved members.

2. The effect, if any of Government practices policies and procedures: here the union is granted full standing, as part of a “bargaining agents coalition” with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and the Professional Engineers and Architects of the Ontario Public Service (PEGO). “In light of OPSEU’s broad representation of provincial government employees, it may be appropriate for OPSEU to take the lead in this coalition,” Justice O’Connor wrote.

3. General water safety issues: OPSEU is granted full standing.

“OPSEU members and staff have done a tremendous amount of thinking, talking, researching, and writing to get us to this point,” said OPSEU president Leah Casselman. “We have just as much work ahead. Through this Inquiry, our union has a chance to help restore accountability and safety to Ontario’s drinking water system.”

For more information, check the OPSEU web site at www.opseu.org or the official Inquiry web site at www.walkertoninquiry.com.

Mike Harris doesn’t stand a chance. Not when he’s up against this bunch.

This morning, a delegation of striking home care nurses from OPSEU Local 269 at the Hamilton-Wentworth Victorian Order of Nurses stopped by Queen’s Park to send Harris a message: stop starving home care.

The 97 nurses were fresh from their role in defeating the Tory candidate in the Sept. 7 by-election in Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Aldershot. Led by Local 269 steward Mary Catherine Ridell, they sang such picket-line hits as “Where have all the nurses gone?” and “We are gentle, angry nurses.”

“What the by-election proved is that, after Walkerton, the Ontario public now understands what public sector workers do,” said OPSEU president Leah Casselman, who spoke at a news conference before the rally. “Home care was one of the issues that the Tories couldn’t dodge during the by-election. It’s workers like these who put the issue on the agenda, and we’re going to keep it on the agenda until we get some results.”

Casselman called on the government to bring wages for home care workers up to hospital wage levels.

With a big budget surplus and billions in new federal funding, the government can certainly afford it, she said.

“They’ve got money coming out of every… area you can think of.”

Casselman also called for an end to the competitive bidding system which, she said, is “destroying home care” by driving down wages and forcing workers to leave the system.

“Our members will not join in a race to the bottom,” she said. “Competition belongs on the playing field, not in health care.”