TORONTO - Ontario nurses and their supporters rallied at Queen’s Park to complain that they are being overworked and undervalued following the breakdown of negotiations with the province’s hospitals.
Ontario Nurses Association president Linda Haslam-Stroud said nurses are being told that they’re “rich” and should accept wage and benefit rollbacks.
“I’ve been negotiating now for 34 years, I’ve been involved in provincial bargaining for most of those decades, this round to me is the most despicable in relation to the lack of value of the nurses,” Haslam-Stroud said Wednesday. “The government is basically saying they’re going to balance the budget on our backs.”
Ontario Hospital Association negotiators demanded a 3% rollback in wages for new nurses entering the grid, a $26,000 loss over eight years, and changes to the shift differential and how experience is calculated for nurses who transfer between facilities, she said. READ MORE