Introduce paid sick days, de Villa urges Queen’s Park
Businesses that rely on temporary workers need support, new report adds
The Ontario government needs to introduce five permanent paid sick days — increasing to 10 during an infectious disease outbreak — and strengthen protections for temporary workers amid the pandemic, a new report from Toronto’s medical officer of health says.
Calling paid sick leave an “essential” protection, the report from Dr. Eileen de Villa constitutes the most detailed and robust demand from local health authorities on worker safety yet, as the province considers additional lockdown measures to cope with surging COVID- 19 cases. On Monday, Ontario reported 3,338 new cases and 29 deaths.
The report from the city’s top doctor to its board of health echoes much of what worker advocates and experts have called for since early last year.
“It has become increasingly evident that paid sick leave provisions are essential to protect the health of individual workers, their workplaces, and the broader community,” de Villa’s report says. “Workers without paid sick leave, particularly lowwage, precariously employed essential workers, experience financial pressure to work even when ill.”
In an interview with the Star, Toronto board of health chair Joe Cressy ( Ward 10 Spadina— Fort York) said stronger protections for front- line workers were crucial in the virus’s second wave. The proposal “is putting forward a specific, clear and evidence- informed position: 10 days during a publichealth emergency immediately,” he said.
“We need to move past the repetitive cycle of increased restrictions without enhanced support for those who can’t work from home,” he added.
Monday’s report also calls on the provincial labour ministry to “provide resources and funding” to support workplaces reliant on temporary workers to ensure training and infection control measures.
Toronto Public Health has been in “frequent” meetings with the ministry, the report adds, to “advocate for numerous changes in practice and policy that would support healthier workplaces in the COVID- 19 response and beyond.” That includes advocating for better supports for temp workers and “strengthening recently implemented proactive inspections.”
There are 235 active workplace outbreaks across the province, the second highest number behind those in care settings. The provincial government only provides detailed statistics on the outbreaks in agriculture, food processing, retail and the medical sector; the vast majority of active outbreaks are classified as being in “other” workplaces.
In Toronto, 60 per cent of workplace outbreaks have occurred in warehousing, manufacturing and food processing.
Deena Ladd of the Torontobased Workers Action Centre said worker advocates have consistently called on the province to implement seven permanent paid sick days and 14 during the pandemic to account for quarantine requirements. But she called the city’s latest demands a “vital measure.”
“The City of Toronto has recognized that paid sick days are vital to workers protecting themselves,” she said. “This is what we’ve been saying for years that if you have precarious employment, that leads to worse working conditions.”
While Ontario workers previously had access to two paid sick days, the measure was reversed by Premier Doug Ford in 2018.
Only 42 per cent of Canadian workers have access to paid sick leave — and that drops to 10 per cent for low- wage workers, Monday’s report notes.
De Villa’s call for 10 paid sick days is in line with discussions at the federal level on negotiating a “new paid sick day regime” with the provinces, which could potentially be delivered through the employment insurance system.
A spokesperson for the provincial Labour Ministry said in a statement that Ford had joined “federal and provincial partners” to negotiate sickleave provisions during the pandemic, culminating in the existing federal emergency sickness benefit.
But Monday’s report says the federal benefit — which provides workers who successfully apply with $ 500 a week for up to two weeks — is insufficient.
“The benefit falls short of providing workers with mandated and immediately accessible paid sick days. In addition, it pays less than a full- time minimumwage job in most provinces. Therefore, some lowwage workers still experience a financial loss,” de Villa’s report says.
In August, a report from the Decent Work and Health Network ( DWHN) found that Canada ranks in the bottom quarter globally for sick- leave protections.