Ontario tightens wage increase rules for personal support workers - The Globe and Mail

A letter to the province’s 14 regional health organizations outlines severalchanges, including limiting the next instalments of a wage increase to PSWs whomake less than $19 an hour, and measures to deny new business to employers thatrefuse to accept the publicly funded raise for their support workers.

The new guidelines come a month after The Globe and Mail reported a litany ofon-the-ground challenges uncovered during the program’s first year. Concernsfrom employers and the very unions that had pushed for the raise prompted theMinistry of Health and Long-Term Care to delay the second phase of the increase,an additional $1.50-an-hour, that was due on April 1.

The employers’ concerns included the fact that some PSWs were inadvertentlyexcluded, and others were already being paid well above the new minimum.

Some of the organizations refused to accept the raise because they could notapply it to all of their support workers and they feared it would lead todemands for similar increases from employees in other categories.

Eligible workers will get the next increase by Aug. 1, a spokesman for theminister said. It will be retroactive to April 1 and is projected to cost thegovernment $77.8-million – the same as the first instalment.

Ontario’s Liberals promised a $4-an-hour raise for PSWs over three years inthe dying days of their minority government, and enacted it last year afterreturning to office with a majority.

A union that represents PSWs who work in home care vowed to challenge thewage cap, saying the Liberals are coming up short on their promise to the mostlyfemale personal support work force. “When we say $19 an hour, that seems likeit’s not an unreasonable amount,” said Kelly O’Sullivan, the chair for CUPEOntario’s health-care workers. “But it’s precarious work. It’s work where youhave no guarantee of hours.”

Health Minister Eric Hoskins said on Thursday that the problems arose becausehis department did not know enough about PSWs in the home-care sector.

“When we went into this, we had so little information about our PSWs in theprovince, including, quite frankly, how many of them there were and how theywere being compensated,” Dr. Hoskins told The Globe in an interview. “What we’verealized is that we’ve really benefited from the knowledge we’ve gained over thecourse of the last year. So the principle was the correct one. I stand bythat.”

Opposition politicians slammed the Liberals for not doing their homework.

The difficulties highlight the complex nature of the sector and its lack oftransparency, NDP health critic France Gélinas said. “It is symptomatic of abroken home-care system.”

The MPP for Nickel Belt also expressed concern that plans to introduce acommon rate of pay for PSW visits will threaten service in rural and northerncommunities because it would not take into account the higher traveldemands.

Bill Walker, the deputy health critic for the Ontario ProgressiveConservatives, said the handling of the raise points to “an overall lack of goodpolicy.”

“I just think the whole thing has been very confusing,” he said. “This is thetype of thing that drives me crazy.”

The wage increase was designed to attract and retain more PSWs – who delivermore than half of all home care, helping clients dress, bathe, prepare meals andmanage medications, among other tasks, yet are generally paid less and have lessstable working schedules than their counterparts in hospitals and nursinghomes.

Rather than simply raising their minimum wage to $16.50 an hour from $12.50,the government also introduced a $4-an-hour “wage enhancement” to most PSWs,regardless of their base salary. It was not long before the ministry discoveredthat some PSWs were earning more than the new minimum.

Deborah Simon, the chief executive officer of the Ontario Community SupportAssociation, which represents hundreds of non-profit agencies, said that createdproblems for many of her members, who have other employees such as registeredpractical nurses who did not get a similar raise. “I think the cap is definitelya step forward,” she said.

Capping the raise in subsequent years also will free up money to correctother oversights, Dr. Hoskins said.

The raise will now extend to PSWs working in adult day programs,in overnight respite care and in a Toronto pilot project that had beenoverlooked. And the ministry will fund an added 22.7 per cent of all employeewages, up from 16 per cent for benefits.

Dr. Hoskins said he hopes some of these changes will bring the remainingholdouts onside. As of last month, 27 mostly non-profit community organizationshad refused to accept the increase.