Strike News Coverage
Newspaper stories from across OntarioLPH eyes deaths during strike
Thunder Bay Times Journal
April 30, 2002
Several patients’ deaths at Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital could “possibly” be related to the Ontario Public Service Employees Union strike, LPH chief psychiatrist and clinical director Lois Hutchinson said yesterday.
“We’ve had several deaths during the strike,” Hutchinson told a news conference at the office of MPP Michael Gravelle (L-Thunder Bay-Superior North).
“Are you going to attribute those deaths to the strike? Possibly, but not 100 per cent,” she said.
Hutchinson said LPH patients and out-patients have died since the strike started.
A Toronto Star story said a confidential report written by senior psychiatrists and management at LPH stated some of the 112 patients will never be able to walk independently again, and others will die sooner than expected because of inadequate staffing.
Hutchinson said elderly LPH patients are especially at risk and there have been several cases of aspiration pneumonia.
She said with fewer staffers to supervise feedings, many elderly patients are at risk of choking.
Other patients, she said, have been left in beds for prolonged periods which could lead to blood clots.
The Star story mentioned behaviours at LPH, such as self-mutilation, slashing, overdosing and self-stabbing, have been significantly higher since the onset of the strike.
Hutchinson met with Gravelle, MPP Lyn McLeod (L-Thunder Bay-Atikokan) and others who are pleading with Premier Ernie Eves to personally intervene in the OPSEU strike.
Hutchinson said many of the 800 out-patients are not coming to LPH for appointments while others have found themselves in physical or legal difficulties in the community.
Hutchinson fears psychiatric patients in the community might have to be readmitted to LPH.
“You’ve substantially lowered the resources these people need in the community,” she said.
“When you deal with a vulnerable population, there is a (safety) concern,” McLeod said.
She said LPH staffers on the picket line are frustrated they can’t care for their patients.
“They care about the people they work with,” Gravelle added.
LPH employees are limited in services they can provide, said Doris Meredith, president of OPSEU Local 720 which represents LPH employees.
“Our staff can only do what was negotiated and legally recognized in the essential services agreement,” Meredith said. The agreement was signed before the strike.
“We’ve done whatever we could to maintain the level of service under the agreement,” she said.
The strike has led to hygiene, feeding and emotional support problems, said Margaret O’Flaherty, chairwoman of the LPH community advisory board.
“This situation would be unacceptable in a general hospital,” she said.
“There would be a public outcry.”
Strike butchers business: OPSEU workers not spending at local businesses
Oshawa This Week
Apr 28, 2002
OSHAWA - Business is brutal for downtown restaurants, used to brisk breakfast and lunch-time crowds, since public service workers went on strike March 13.
Regulars are hard to come by now at Georges Place, where owner John Sklifas has watched his sales plummet 50 per cent.
In a typical week, he goes through 48 dozen eggs. That's dropped to 18 dozen since unionized government workers walked off the job six weeks ago. It has forced Mr. Sklifas to cash in some RRSPs to pay his employees.
"It's dead," he says.
"If it keeps going like this, we'll have to close the doors."
The majority of customers who frequent his King Street West restaurant work at the Michael Starr Ministry of Finance building across the street. On Friday those employees stood outside in crisp air opposite the government building. The bundled-up crowd cheered when a driver in a passing vehicle
honked his horn. Pedestrians either had to walk around or through the peaceful protesters to reach their destinations.
There are almost 3,000 public servants in the Oshawa and Whitby areas, including nurses, probation and parole officers, jail guards and clerical workers. The general reasons for the strike revolve around wages, job security and benefits.
"(They're) the people who help my business," Mr. Sklifas says. There are a few OPSEU members inside the sparsely-populated establishment. "They have no money to spend," he adds.
Mr. Sklifas notes clients usually sit down at a table and order breakfast or lunch but now they simply grab a coffee and leave.
The owner says it was always difficult to find a seat during the lunch rush. "Now, it's all yours."
Down the street at Zack's Sandwiches, business is slow. Owner Zack Eid has been an entrepreneur for 20 years and has run his shop from three different locations.
"I'm just barely surviving," Mr. Eid says. "We are 50 per cent down in our business. That's very, very devastating to any business."
The one-man operation does catering and sells a variety of pitas, buns and subs to the lunch crowd. "The ministry is the major traffic flow." He's been depending on his faithful customers from outside the downtown who continue to come by.
The manager of Cravings, who didn't want her name used, says she's fed up with the strike. She's been closing the restaurant before 3:30 p.m. while prior to the action she didn't leave for the day until 5 p.m.
"This is ridiculous."
OPSEU workers can't picket at jail: court order
Milton Canadian Champion
Apr 30, 2002
Striking workers at the Maplehurst Correctional Facility will have to find someplace else to protest following a court order yesterday.
The order -- received at 3:15 p.m. -- prevents Ontario Public Service Employees Union members (OPSEU) from gathering outside or near the corrections building to picket or slow traffic to the jail.
"We're going to re-group and see where we go from here," said Debbie Haring, an OPSEU representative. "We'll go anywhere we can go to try and get a settlement to this strike, put some pressure on the government."
The Ministry of Corrections sought the court order following an incident yesterday morning in which five court vehicles were blocked from entering the jail.
"The picket line was refusing to let the vehicles to come through the line to pick inmates up to take them to court," explained Julia Noonan, ministry spokesperson. "This is a very serious matter because inmates have to get to court."
With the protest ban in place, striking workers will likely join picket lines at other correctional facilities, the Milton court house or Ernest C. Drury School for the Deaf, said Ms Haring.
Picket lines have also been dispersed at the Toronto West Detention Centre and the Toronto East Detention Centre.
Meanwhile, the Province continues discussions to put school for the deaf employees back to work.
An Ontario Labour Relations Board decision delivered this weekend ordered essential service workers to return to their jobs. But the decision was labeled too vague in its description of essential services by both OPSEU and the ministry.
Negotiations are expected to continue tomorrow which could see students return to the classroom.
Striking school workers include all interrupters, counsellors, maintenance workers, secretaries and kitchen staff. Teachers remain on the job, but aren't holding classes.
Hamilton industrial fatality under investigation
The Hamilton Spectator
The sun had set only a few hours on Sunday's National Day of Mourning for workers killed or injured on the job when Danilo 'Danny' Felipe died. Felipe, of Prospect Street South, Hamilton, died after his clothing became entangled in a belt system inside the Columbian Chemical Canada Ltd. plant on
Parkdale Avenue North just after midnight yesterday.
His death occurred a few hours after workers who turned out at the fallen workers' monument at Hamilton City Hall heard the startling statistics on death, injury or illness due to work-related causes. The Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) reported claims for 453 fatalities and
374,826 injuries last year.
Of those who died, 61 were young workers killed on summer jobs or co-op work terms.
Felipe, a 45-year-old married father of two daughters, started at Columbian's plant about six weeks ago. He was working alone in a product storage area when the accident occurred.
His supervisor, who had gone looking for him after being unable to contact him, found his body at 12:55 a.m. trapped in the rigging of a conveyor belt 12 to 15 metres in the air.
A coroner pronounced Felipe dead at the scene.
His death is under investigation by the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Hamilton police and the coroner's office.
Columbian Chemical's general manager Jim McGuffin, who went to see Felipe's family yesterday morning, said later his death has devastated workers at the plant.
"This is a tragic event," McGuffin said in a statement. "We extend our deepest sympathy to Danny's family for their loss."
McGuffin said the company has arranged for counselling for the family and employees alike.
The company's safety policy and its commitment to a safe environment hangs prominently in the front lobby. The same message is repeated on large billboards at an employee gate.
Dated March 1, 2002, the statement says it is the policy of the company "to promise and maintain a healthy and safe environment in order to safeguard (its) personnel, facilities, equipment, the environment and the public."
Posted beside the policy is a bold list of 19 plant safety rules.
It has been two years since Columbian had a reportable injury. Employees can't remember a fatality in decades.
Columbian, which produces carbon black for use in products such as tires and industrial rubber, has one of the best records in the chemical industry, said McGuffin.
Columbian Chemicals, headquartered in Marietta, Ga., is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Phelps Dodge Corp. of Phoenix, Arizona.
OPSEU strike enters eighth week
National Post
Tue 30 Apr 2002
Page: A17 / Front
TORONTO - The longest public service strike in Ontario history enters its eighth week tomorrow with no end in sight, wreaking havoc at everything from provincial tourist attractions to land-registry offices to jails.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) members walked off the job on March 13 and while negotiations with the provincial government are continuing in Toronto, talks appear to have reached a stalemate.
That means operations as disparate as the Ontario Science Centre and offices issuing birth certificates, drivers licences and health-insurance cards remain closed.
About 33,000 unionists are on picket lines, while about 11,000 OPSEU members are performing essential services such as water testing, ambulance dispatching and guarding jails.
Howard Hampton, the NDP leader, said at the centre of the dispute is the Conservative government's desire to control the union's pension fund.
"If the government wanted to get a deal, it could get a deal tomorrow. They're not far apart on wages. But the government wants control over the workers' pension fund," he said.
Randy Robinson, a union spokesman, said the employees want to protect their $10-billion OPSEU Pension Trust. It has generated a $2-billion surplus over the past seven years, which is divided equally between the workers and the government.
Mr. Robinson said the Conservative party wants the right to prevent unionists from spending their half of the surplus on improving the pension.
OPSEU marches on Tory office: Police investigate assault complaints
The North Bay Nugget
Tue 30 Apr 2002
Front page
Three volunteers at Tory candidate Al McDonald's campaign office said they received minor injuries when about 200 Ontario Public Service Employees Union members pushed through the doors during a rally Monday.
"I told them that they could not come in, and I was blocking the door," said Brett Kelly, a McDonald campaign worker.
"They started pushing me in. I was pushing back, trying to hold them back, and one gentleman grabbed me by the throat," said Kelly, a party supporter from southern Ontario who also worked for the Ernie Eves leadership race.
North Bay police confirmed Monday night they are investigating the allegations. No charges have been laid.
Kelly said he was treated and released from the North Bay General Hospital with muscle strain to his neck.
Campaign manager David Kilgour alleged a striker spat on a volunteer, and another grabbed a volunteer by the arm.
"We have been so respectful of OPSEU pickets right from the beginning," Kilgour said. "To have them come in . . . like that is a little upsetting."
About 400 striking union members gathered at Thomson Park for OPSEU Appreciation Day, and most marched to McDonald's Fisher Street headquarters.
OPSEU members, Galt staff clash
Cobourg Daily Star
Tue 30 Apr 2002
When the constituents come calling, the provincial government runs and hides, according to local striking public servants. But a spokesman for Northumberland MPP Doug Galt said a recent clash between Ontario Public Service Employees Union members and constituency office workers was the product of
miscommunication.
Pete Harding, president of OPSEU Local 337, said he and about 20 members were treated like "third-class citizens," Friday at Northumberland Dr. Galt's Cobourg office.
The members had phoned two days prior, and were told Friday was a constituency day, Mr. Harding said, and that Dr. Galt would be in the office. When he and his fellow union members arrived at the office, peacefully bearing signs, petitions and information about their concerns, they were told Dr.
Galt was "not in the building." The office workers then promptly disappeared into another room and refused to talk to the demonstrators, Mr. Harding said.
"One assistant came out and said he had to go to the bathroom. We let him out and he came back about 15 minutes later with the police," Mr. Harding said.
The demonstrators were peaceful, and there was no reason for the police to be called, Mr. Harding said.
"The police were a little amazed that they were there in the first place," he said.
The office assistant then asked the police to remove the protesters. Prior to asking the demonstrators to leave, however, the police said they should listen to their concerns.
"The police had to tell them to entertain our questions, and they stayed through the process," said Mr. Harding. He went on to say he is frustrated with the lack of response from the MPP.
CAW backs striking brothers
The Peterborough Examiner
Tue 30 Apr 2002
Page: B1 / Front
Members of the Canadian Auto Workers showed a little brother and sisterly love to striking public service workers yesterday.
The CAW managed to get its hands on an industrial-sized barbecue from the city of Peterborough and invited striking Ontario Public Service Employee Union members to join them in a parking lot at the corner of Aylmer and Dalhousie streets for a lunch-time treat.
"They are in pretty tough after seven or eight weeks on the picket lines," CAW Local 524 member Keith Riel said. "We need to show them that we are there for them. We know what this is like."
Strike keeps new officers off beat; Closed police college delays graduation
The Toronto Star
Tue 30 Apr 2002
Page: B01
They're in uniform. And they're in limbo.
More than 250 Toronto police recruits - some just weeks from being sworn in - are patrolling a sort of purgatory as they wait out the OPSEU strike, which has closed the Ontario Police College in Aylmer.
There are 110 cadets who need just 15 more days of training and to sit a final exam before they're deployed on the streets, plus 144 who were to start training at the college Thursday.
"We have 254 police officers who are needed for the streets of Toronto that we can't move," Staff-Sergeant Steve Duggan, of the force's training unit, said yesterday.
Typically, cadets spend two weeks at the police service's own training facility, C.O. Bick College on Finch Ave. E., and then go to Aylmer for three months. They return to Toronto for a further five weeks of training, are sworn in, and then spend more than three months with coach officers.
But because many of the college's employees are members of OPSEU and policy states that police do not cross picket lines, a wrench has been thrown into the service's plans.
Eves is being unfair
The (Kitchener) Record
Tue 30 Apr 2002
Page: A8
Section: Letters
The story is that the government is offering a fair and reasonable offer to the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU).
Let's dissect this fair offer: It features a raise of up to 10 per cent for staff over a three year contract. I will receive 1.9 per cent a year and we will never see the remaining four per cent because it is based on pay for performance which we never received in the past.
After the next provincial election, MPPs since 1995 will receive an increase of 36.6 per cent -- not a bad increase considering they haven't sat in Queen's Park since Dec. 18, 2001.
As for the one per cent raise in exchange for productivity and efficiency gains, all that managers will have to say is that staff are not there yet.
As for an overall raise of three per cent for staff who are at the maximum salary range, it is "based on performance." We never received any performance benefits before, so why would management start paying us now? The only increase that 44,000 members would get would be 1.9 per cent a year.
We could lose 15,000 members that would not be paying into our pension fund and this would collapse our pension fund.
Classified staff could be laid off for any reason and they would not be able to file a grievance.
Let's exchange Premier Ernie Eves's pay increase and benefit package for ours and when we retire we will accept his pension and severance package.
Bill MacLeod
President, Ontario Public Service Employees Union Local 257
Kitchener
New premier inherits 'OPSEU groupies'
Cambridge Times
Tue 30 Apr 2002
Page: 1 / Front
Striking civil servants brought their placards and props to the Cambridge Holiday Inn Thursday with the hope of getting the attention of their new boss.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) members, in their seventh week of a provincewide strike, lined the street 90-minutes prior to the scheduled arrival of Premier Ernie Eve's.
But the newly-elected premier had already slipped by them; arriving earlier than scheduled for a Progressive Conservative fund-raiser.
Linda -Lee Strickland, who works for the Kitchener office of the finance ministry, said like the media, strikers were told Eves would arrive in Cambridge at 5:30 p.m. She said she and her fellow strikers arrived at 4 p.m., only to learn Eves was already inside.
In his speech to a group of about 200 party faithful, Eves said the presence of the strikers made it seem as if former Premier Mike Harris should be there.
"All his OPSEU groupies are out there," he joked. "He didn't tell me I'd inherit them, too."
Later, Eves told reporters he's confident the government and OPSEU can resolve the dispute. He said the government has improved its offer to workers, and there are serious negotiations going on.
"OPSEU has the right to strike and they chose the right to strike," he said. "I think we're very close to resolving some of the issues OPSEU has raised."
OPSEU campaign literature says the province's "demands for concessions are far greater than the union's requests for improvements." OPSEU says its members have already lost more than $150 million in wages in their fight.
"Frontline workers are the real foundation of the strong public services Ontario needs so badly to remain competitive. Each day the strike goes on causes more suffering and exposes Ontarians to greater risk."
Province, strikers urged to resolve dispute
The Standard (St. Catharines )
Tue 30 Apr 2002
St. Catharines council is calling for an end to the Ontario public service strike.
Hedging on a call from striking Ontario Public Service Employees Union members to support them, city council opted to urge both the union and the government to resolve the dispute at the bargaining table.
"The tradition of this council, in terms of labour disputes, is not to take sides," St. Andrew's Ward Councillor Joe Kushner said Monday night. "Instead, we encourage both sides to come to a resolution."
OPSEU Local 211 vice-president Doug Hart told city council the province is incurring significant costs as it pays managers to cover for striking workers.
"Front-line workers are the real foundation of strong public service and infrastructure in Ontario," Hart said. "The province's demands for concessions are far greater than the union's demands for improvements."
As the strike drags on towards its eighth week, Hart said Ontarians are facing greater risks. A striking public service means no labour inspectors to ensure occupational health and safety standards are being met.
Instead of making sure trucks are road-worthy, highway traffic inspectors are walking the picket lines.
"There is no enforcement activity," Hart said.
With no enforcement, there are no fines. And fines collected for provincial offences go to municipal coffers.
"There is a significant amount of revenue that flows into the city generated by the enforcement of provincial offences legislation," Hart said.
The city is expecting provincial fines to add $422,000 to its revenue this year.
"This is a provincial government issue, but obviously the City of St. Catharines is being impacted by the ongoing strike," said Merritton Ward Councillor Wendy Patriquin.
Edition: Final
Jail manager may be cited for contempt; Accused of misleading judge
The Hamilton Spectator
Tue 30 Apr 2002
Byline: Barbara Brown, Justice Reporter
A Superior Court judge says he will decide in the next day or two whether Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre Superintendent Robert Thomas should be cited for contempt of court.
At the same time, Justice James Kent set aside a court injunction issued by a brother judge against striking correctional officers at the Barton Street jail, ordering them back to work. That order was made on March 15 by Justice David Crane, who became extremely annoyed about inmates not showing up for court during early days
of the seven-week-old strike by 45,000 Ontario public servants.
Lawyer Don Eady, who represented Local 248 of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), argued the judge issued the injunction after being misled by the superintendent about the reason prisoners were not brought to court.
He said Thomas told the judge it was the fault of correctional officers refusing to abide by their essential services agreement. In fact, said Eady, the guards did report for work but were refused admission because of the ongoing dispute. Managers were left to run the jail and were too tired and overworked to get the inmates
ready for court.
"...(Thomas) didn't want to get blamed by the court for not getting inmates to court. So, he shifted the blame to the union," Eady said.
Apr 28 11:44 - BN - Broadcast News
The head of the Ontario Public Service Employees says the Eves government must be held accountable for three deaths that have occurred in the past week.
Leah Casselman says the deaths of two construction workers in Toronto and the death of an inmate at the Millbrook Correctional Centre should be a warning to the Tories.
She says those deaths may have been avoided if OPSEU members weren't on strike.
She says employees at the construction site where the two workers died last week have said the labour ministry hasn't been regularly inspecting the worksite since the strike started.
And Casselman says logbooks show managers in some jails haven't been doing regular night time patrols. (BN)
(Inmate-Death) An autopsy is scheduled for today in Peterborough on the body of an inmate from the Millbrook Correctional Centre in eastern Ontario.
Police say 52-year-old Baljit Deol was found in his cell yesterday morning. Police say there is no sign of foul play.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union says the man died of an apparent heart attack. (CJBQ, BN)
(OPSEU-Jail-Injunction) The Eves government is taking striking Ontario public servants to court again, this time to curb picketing in front of provincial jails.
The province is seeking injunctions against picketers in front of Toronto-area institutions. Yesterday the courts dealt with a complaint that picketers at the Mimico Correctional Centre blocked doctors and nurses from entering the facility.
A judge ruled picketers can only delay anyone crossing their line for five minutes. Today the court is expected to deal with an injunction application involving the Toronto Youth Assessment Centre. (TorSun)
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