PRHC clerical staff wages frozen

OPSEU to file grievances after re-evaluation of jobs

A group of 244 unionized clerical workers at Peterborough Regional Health Centre will have their wages frozen for the next five to eight years after a re-evaluation of their jobs — a move that the union president calls “unconscionable” and has vowed to fight, while the hospital says the re-evaluation was long overdue and done “objectively”.

Warren “Smokey” Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), said in a phone interview from Toronto on Tuesday that he doesn’t buy for a moment this idea that the job evaluations were impartially done.

“It’s just about one of the worst things I’ve seen an employer do,” he said, adding that “at the very minimum” the union will file grievances.

“It’s absolutely unbelievable,” he said. “I wish I could say it’s a mistake on the part of the employer… It’s unconscionable.”

There are 247 clerical workers at the hospital represented by OPSEU Local 345.

More than half of them work part-time, according to the union, and all but three are women.

Of the 247, all but three had their jobs downgraded in the re-evaluation; it means their pay will be frozen for five to eight years, a release from the union states.

One of the positions, a cancercare intake job, was last evaluated three years ago and the hospital determined then the pay was too low — yet now the same job is being downgraded, with no wage increase until 2026, the release states.

Another clerical job in finance was downgraded, the release states, even though the hospital recently decided to ask for an additional two-year diploma for

applicants to qualify for the job.

Thomas said he doesn’t want to allow the hospital “to get away with that.”

He said he’d be meeting with officials in Toronto on Wednesday morning about legal recourse available to the workers, and that he’s not afraid to “sic lawyers” on the hospital.

“I intend to make an example of this employer,” he said.

PRHC communications director Michelene Ough wrote in a statement to The Examiner that a job evaluation committee was struck earlier this year to “objectively review” all the hospital’s clerical positions.

“A broad review of these positions had not been done for many years, and many of these jobs have changed significantly in that time,” she wrote, citing factors such as improvement in technology as well as changes in education and experience requirements.

The hospital’s policy is “to compensate all of our union and non-union employees in a way that allows us to remain competitive in recruiting skilled people,” Ough wrote.

“We understand that this might be difficult for some of our staff, and we have made resources available to support them through this change,” she said, although she didn’t give details about those resources.

Meanwhile, OPSEU vice-president and treasurer Eddy Almeida states in the press release that “the bosses” at PRHC “are trying to cut costs on the backs of our most vulnerable workers.”

“Job evaluations are supposed to be fair and objective,” Almeida states in the release. “But how fair and objective could they be when literally 99 per cent of them result in downgrades? This whole process stinks.”

Thomas points out in the same release that the position of president and CEO of the hospital has had a 25 per cent raise since 2014.

Dr. Peter McLaughlin was the highest-paid public sector bureaucrat in Peterborough for the second consecutive year, in 2017. He earned $379,999.42 in salary and $12,000 in taxable benefits in 2017.

McLaughlin stepped in as interim president and CEO following the abrupt departure of his predecessor, Ken Tremblay, in late 2014; nearly 18 months later, McLaughlin was appointed permanent leader of the hospital.