In the News

Jonathan Pinto: A worker’s strike at CHS is disrupting services for Deaf, Deaf-Blind, and Hard of Hearing across Ontario. 200 CHS employees went on strike this past Monday. Including workers at offices across North, Sudbury Timmins, Sault Saint Marie, and Thunder Bay. They include audiologists, Speech Language Patholigist, Deaf-Blind Intervernors, Interpreters, instructors and cousellors. They have been trying to get a new collective agreement this week to imporve wages but things reached a breaking point this week.

Mara Waren is a CHS employee and the President to CUPE 2073, the union representing workers. She spoke with CBCs Erica Corstale.

Mara: What led us here is in normal barganing you meet for several days or you meet for a day or two at a time. With this employer we have met for five and a half hours over the course of two days. In those five and a half hours they gave us what was called a “best offer” and they didn’t want us to give us our proposals because they said it was their best offer. Then on the 2nd meeting that we had they filed a no board, the second meeting we were meeting with a conciliator that the employer approached the ministry of labour, so a conciliator was assigned and in that second meeting of three and a half hours but they didn’t meet with us in face-to-face on the zoom. They would only meet with the conciliator and we gave them our proposals, we were working on a counter proposal to their best offer and the employer left and didn’t come back. In that same day filed what’s called a “no board”. After seventeen days with a no board then the employer is in the legal position to lock us out and go on strike. The collective agreement was due to expire on March 31st and so we were in barganing for a new collective agreement. The employer was only offering a wage increase of 2% for one year and this is the second one year offer in a row. Our members need stability, we need to be able to make long term goals with some of our clients. Often when you are in barganing, though the collective agreement expired March 31st, for example what has happened right now, it’s now May. So we don’t actually work under the terms for twelve months. Even if we were able to settle this month we would only have ten months left of collective agreement. So how do you plan long term goals when we might be right where we are again next year.

Erica: You touched on a few things there that have happened but what are some of the key issues and what would you and the other employees like to see in a new agreement and from your employer.

Mara: We would like to have a two year agreement, we’ve accepted the employers offer of 2% in the first year, in the second year we’d like to see a 3% raise. We’d also like the employer to honour the movement with Bill 124, which was when Ford declared that public service could only get a 1% increase for three years and the other sectors have received recompense and a lot of the social service agencies have not. We want the employer to put language in that guarantees if there is a settlement and if the Ford goverment gives money to the front line workers and it will go to the front line workers. The employer has not guaranteed that they will put that in a new collective agreement. We would like to have ten sick days, we would like a pension increase, we started our pension plan many many years ago and many of our memebers are retiring without the pension that they thought we would have. In our current condition, in the last ten years we have lost 16% of our buying power, we have fallen 16% behind the rate of inflation. So we are not asking for a remedy right away, we’d like a two year agreement, 2% the first year wage increase, 3% the second year.

Erica: And how is all of this affected employees? What are they saying and how has that affected employee numbers over the past few years?

Mara: That is also a huge issue. So right now at a decade ago we were at 550 employees, we are now at 206 employees. We’re at the point where we feel that many of us are really pressured to regonize the stats that they want us to attain. We recongnize that as key to keeping funding but many of us are now doing the work of more than one person. For example, in Sault St. Marie the employment consultant there left the agency and now Employment Services are being provided from Sudbury to the Sault St. Marie clients. Some of the clients in Sudbury who have a significant hearing loss or are Deaf or Deaf-Blind, they require first day job support at least. How can I provide job support for clients in Sault St. Marie and still provide services in Sudbury? So we are really taxed and my story isn’t the only one like this, it’s happening across the province. How do you go from 550 people to 206? So many of the staff, like I said not just me, are feeling that the pressure from the clients to be providing the type of service that we used to provide and that’s what we would like to do again. We are very proud of the work that we do for the Deaf, Deaf-Blind, and Hard of Hearing communities. We just want to be able to provide them good service.

Erica: And you know with all of this going on, how hard it is for employees to deliver services and now with the strike on as well. How does this affect those community members who rely on those services?

Mara: Well I know the employer is endevouring to provide some skeletal staffing. But it’s not equivalent to [skills?…] that the staff has with the history of our service delivery. You know it’s the clients I heard here at the Ener Center today celebrating Mayfest say to one of the staff “Hey when are you coming back, are you going to be back next week?” and the staff had to say “I don’t think next week. We’re hoping the employer will come back to the table”.

Erica: What is Canadian Hearing Services saying right now and where are things at with barganing and talks right now going forward?

Mara: Well right now the employer has withdrawn what they called their “best offer” so right now there is no proposals from the employer on the table. Nothing they withdrew it. We have responded to the best offer and we are hoping the employer will consider our best offer because we brought down our expectations of what we were hoping to negotiate significantly trying to work with the employer when they said that they had no additional funds. So we are really not asking for a lot more in the first year and we’re just asking for a 3% increase in year two. So we do have a full day of bargaining booked for May the 6th and we appreciate the employer coming to the table for the one day. I would like the employer to book additional days with us because right now with them having nothing on the table how do we get to a final agreement settlement without a few days of talking to each other. You have to remember in the last month we’ve met a total of about five and a half hours. That’s unheard of, we just want to bargain fairly, want the employer to hear how the employeers felt and what their issues were because it’s really the only time we can bring it up at barganing. But we need the job security of a two year deal, we can’t keep doing these one year deals. It doesn’t give the workers job security and it doesn’t give the clients service security.

Jonathan Pinto: Mara Waren is the president of CUPE Local 2073 representing Audiologists and other workers at Canadian Hearing Services. She was speaking with the CBC’s Erica Corstale. 200 workers have been on strike across the province since April 28th. In a press release Canadian Hearing Services says “It’s committed to hearing it’s dedicated…to it’s dedicated work force and thousands of Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals who rely on the organization’s services every day and it remains focused on resolving the labour dispute in a way that ensures the ability for staff and vitialy ensential services for their clients.”