CORRECTION RE: CALL IN INFORMATION
“Make It Fair” Telephone Town Hall – TONIGHT

For the past 2 years, “special advisors” appointed by the Ministry of Labour have been reviewing and holding hearings into Ontario’s Employment Standards and Labour Relations Acts… and OPSEU has been working with our labour and community allies to push for strong recommendations that will strengthen the rights and improve the jobs of millions of Ontario workers – and make it easier to join and keep a union and bargain fair wages, benefits and working conditions.

Ramping Up the Fight
Now, with the Changing Workplaces Review’s final report expected in March or early April, the Make It Fair and Fight for $15 & Fairness campaigns are ramping up our efforts to push the Liberal government to introduce legislation to deliver major progressive reforms before the end of May.

This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to wine real improvements for every worker in Ontario – unionized or not. And we need YOUR help to make this happen.

Join the Telephone Town Hall – Tuesday March 7, 7-8 p.m.
To find out more about the Changing Workplaces Review, and the campaign to win real changes now, join the Make It Fair Campaign and thousands of labour and community activists for a provincewide telephone town hall on Tuesday, March 7.

Register for the call in advance: http://www.makeitfair.ca/townhall
Once you’ve signed up, you will receive a call to connect you to the Telephone Town Hall a few minutes before 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 7.

If you don’t register or miss the call…
Just dial into the Teletown Hall at 7 p.m.:
Dial in number: (877) 229-8493 Passcode: 116429

For More Information:
> Make It Fair Campaign
Web: http://www.makeitfair.ca
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MakeItFair.OFL/

> Fight for $15 & Fairness:
Web: http://www.15andfairness.org
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Fightfor15andFairness

> OPSEU’s submission to the Changing Workplace Review:
http://www.opseu.org/news/opseu-submission-changing-workplaces-review

Please join OPSEU Local 500 members for a light dinner and a general membership meeting.

• AGENDA:
  • Local 500 Executive reports
  • Election of Local 500 delegates for:
  o OPSEU 2017 Regional Meeting (March 18)
  o OPSEU Annual Convention (April 6-8), and
  o OPSEU Broader Public Service Conference (June 23-25)

WHERE: Faculty Club, University of Toronto, 41 Willcock St., behind Russell St. site
DATE: January 26, 2017
TIME: 5:30pm to 7:30 pm *Win door prizes!

Please attend. Quorum is necessary to ensure a successful meeting.

We are inviting OPSEU members to vote on the new Collective Agreement at one of the ratification meetings.

Ratification meetings will be held at the following locations and times:

Old Gymnasium, Queen Street site:
Tuesday, January 17th @ 7:30 AM; 11:30 AM; & 3:30 PM

Eli Lilly Learning Centre, Russell Street site, 2nd floor, Room 2022:
Wednesday, January 18th @ 7:30 AM; 11:30 AM; & 3:30 PM

This post was circulated by OPSEU <opseucommunicationsdepartment@opseu.org> November 17, 2016

Questions and answers about post-retirement benefits for OPSEU members in the OPSEU Pension Trust (OPTrust) pension plan

Background

On November 16, 2016, OPSEU announced that it had signed an agreement with the Government of Ontario that would give OPSEU members in the OPTrust pension plan new choices with respect to their benefits after retirement. This Q&A answers some of the questions members may have.

1. Why was the union negotiating about my post-retirement benefits in the first place?

Continue reading →

Join OPSEU LOCAL 500 members for a lovely dinner and a general membership meeting.

On the GMM Agenda on November 24^th:

• BARGAINING UPDATE
• VIOLENCE IN THE WORKPLACE
• ELECTION OF A NEW LOCAL 500 VICE-PRESIDENT

WHERE: FACULTY CLUB, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, 41 WILLCOCKS ST.

(behind the Russell St. site)

TIME: 5:30pm to 8pm                                             *Win door prizes!

PLEASE ATTEND. QUORUM IS NECESSARY TO ENSURE A SUCCESSFUL MEETING.

Written by Dave Lundy, Health and Safety Coordinator at OPSEU Head Office

“Where’s the reporter?  I want to speak to her. Today is my first day back to work, after being off sick, recovering from a violent physical assault.” Such is the frustration and genuine fear that our front line mental health care workers face they are no longer willing to suffer in silence. Instead, on Wednesday November 2nd staff took it to the street at CAMH to demonstrate that they no longer are going to suffer workplace violence in silence. They are no longer going to tolerate a management attitude that violent assault is simply part of the job. Continue reading →

The Bargaining Team would like to send a huge THANK YOU to all the members of The Local who attended the Coffee Break this morning.

At 10 00 AM, The Bargaining Team met once again with The Employer to continue to work on achieving the best possible Collective Agreement for all members of the Bargaining Unit.

It quickly became apparent to us, that the employer had no interest in achieving a fair Collective Agreement for the Bargaining Unit.

The Bargaining Team was very disappointed by the proposal that was presented to us.  Unfortunately, there are no substantial changes in this morning’s proposal, from the proposal that The Employer presented on October 19^th for the Bargaining Team to continue negotiating.

The Bargaining Team has rejected this unacceptable proposal. We have advised the employer that we will be moving to Conciliation.

When the Bargaining Team has a date for Conciliation, we will communicate it with all member of the Bargaining Unit.

Please contact any member of the Bargaining Team with questions or concerns.

The Employer has invited your Bargaining Team back to the bargaining table on Monday, November 7th 2016.

Please come out and support your bargaining team and have a coffee break with your colleagues next Monday morning.

At the Queen Street site, the coffee break will be held in the Oasis room, which is located on the ground floor of the Bell Gateway Building behind the Out of this World Café.

At the College and Russell Street sites, the coffee break will be held in the cafeteria located on the second floor of the Russell Street site.

The coffee breaks at both sites will take place from 9 30 AM to 11 30 AM.

Breaks were negotiated into the Collective Agreement a very long time ago, and are your right.

We encourage you to always exercise this right, as well as all your other rights under the Collective Agreement each and every day you come to work.

Did you know:  If all members of Local 500 took their breaks and lunch every day, the workplace would quickly descend into CHAOS due to the amount of free labour we have been giving the employer for many, many years!

Amongst the outstanding items the Bargaining Team will be negotiating are wages, research, and contracting out.

As we return to the bargaining table, your Bargaining Team is as always committed to negotiating a fair and reasonable Collective Agreement for all members of the bargaining unit.

Please contact any member of the Bargaining Team with questions or concerns.

Members of OPSEU L500 and ONA L054 will leaflet and picket their workplaces on November 2, 2016, in a bid to raise awareness of violent episodes at CAMH and the lack of leadership in the senior ranks, in dealing with this issue.

On October 23, an RN was critically injured and may lose her vision because of the attack. In a similar assault in 2014, an RPN was critically injured in an almost identical attack resulting in a similar injury and yet the ELT claims “CAMH is doing better…”

Employees working at CAMH have suffered 3 critical injuries since the end of August, one of them so serious that has led to the requirement of surgery to facial bones. This is over and above the usual assaults employees receive daily. There is an assault every single day at CAMH.

At the fiscal advisory meeting on October 13, the statement was made “…CAMH is dangerously close to the WSIB threshold…we will be facing a surcharge if we cannot keep costs down.” Again, if WSIB costs are on the rise due to workplace injury, then how could CAMH and the leadership team make the claim that CAMH is doing better?

CAMH IS NOT DOING BETTER, and in fact are writing policies and making decisions that place Nursing staff and Allied Health Care Professionals at risk. CAMH is also perpetuating the cycle of violence against women! Not only are they failing to protect staff, there is also encouragement to tolerate sexual advances and inappropriate sexual remarks and innuendo. CAMH leadership is minimizing the impact of these occurrences every single day, and placing people in dangerous situations.

In one program, female staff performing risk assessments do so without any knowledge or collateral information about the person they are seeing—they have been advised if they suspect someone has a weapon they should “run their fingers along the waistband of pants or run their fingers under the wire of the bra…” now that is simply ridiculous—that clinical front line staff are performing this task when they assess people.

Staff have had to independently call the Police when managers failed to intervene appropriately-but the Union has never been advised by CAMH leadership of this and other risky situations.

We are seeking immediate intervention from the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour to deal with the issue of violence in a meaningful way. The “bury your head in the sand” approach by HR, senior leaders and the Board of Directors is unacceptable.

When will CAMH recognize that yoga and a rousing chorus of Kumbaya are NOT going to keep us safe? We need real interventions, real action and people who care to have a safe and Psychologically sound workplace.