Delays in pandemic pay blamed for ‘extreme morale issues’ among front-line workers
OTTAWA — Delays in paying Ontario’s front-line health workers their promised $4-an-hour pandemic pay is undermining morale and creating unnecessary conflict for employers, the CEOs of heavy-hitting health-care organizations such as the Ontario Hospital Association and Children’s Mental Health Ontario say in a joint letter to the premier.
The group also urges the province to expand the scope of the program to cover workers left off the list for pandemic pay even though they may have close contact with people infected with COVID-19.
“This is contributing to extreme morale issues at the front line at a time when staff need to be supported most. It is also creating unnecessary conflict for employers who are left trying to explain to their employees why they cannot provide neither clarity nor the pay itself,” says the letter, which is signed by the CEOs of 11 organizations that together employ “tens of thousands of front-line workers in the fight against COVID-19.”
“Every day, it becomes increasingly difficult to see this great initiative, that has such great promise for health-care worker recognition, be undermined by delay,” the letter says.
Premier Doug Ford announced the pandemic pay in late April. Initially, it included some 350,000 workers, including all non-management staff in long-term care and retirement homes and hospital nurses, along with most addiction, mental health and shelter workers. A few days later, the list was expanded to include 25,000 more workers, among them paramedics, respiratory therapists and public health nurses.
But so far, no one has received their pay and unions argue that many workers who are at risk of COVID-19 exposure have been left out of the pay raise, including X-ray and diagnostic imaging technicians and clerical staff. The Canadian Union of Public Employees staged rallies at hospitals around Ontario to try to get the list expanded, but the government hasn’t budged.
The government did have some good news this week. The money “should start flowing next week,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said in the legislature on Wednesday
when asked about pandemic pay.
“We are moving the funds to employers as quickly as possible and are expediting the work required to get this money into the paycheques of the critical workers across the province,” Sebastian Skamski, press secretary to Treasury Board President Peter Bethlenfalvy, said in an email. “To be clear, this pay will be provided retroactively to April 24, 2020 and the workers who are eligible will get it.
“There are over 375,000 employees who will qualify for the pandemic pay in total,” Skamski said. “This includes staff working in Ontario’s long-term care homes, retirement homes, all hospitals, developmental services, corrections and municipally run homeless shelters. Examples of eligible staff include those providing direct services such as respiratory therapists, paramedics, nurses, cleaning staff, meal preparation staff, and corrections officers.”
But some workers may have to wait even longer to see their money. The pandemic pay will flow from the province to the employer and then to the employee, but in some cases where the employer has no contract or direct link to the province, the money will instead flow through municipal governments or a third-party service provider, slowing the process further.
The pay will be doled out in lump-sum payments in fourweek periods from April 24 to Aug. 13.