It’s now apparent that the Pogressive Conservatives will allow the Liberals to batter teachers and school support staff with legislation imposing takeaways. Even if this legislation does pass, the question is what will the twin parties do to the rest of the public sector? There is, after all, a lot
Continue readingAuthor: Doug Allan
Defending Public Healthcare: Liberal attack on free collective bargaining unprecedented
In the past, government might legislate workers back to work after a lengthy strike or lock-out. Usually, the parties were directed to settle their dispute through an independent arbitrator. Such intrusions by government into free collective bargaining however have gotten rapidly worse in the last year or so. Just over a year
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: LHIN boss: We are going to take money out of hospitals
“We are going to have to take money out of the hospitals. It’s not a small amount. We’re talking about millions,” Debbie Hammond, CEO of the government’s Central East Local Health Integration Network told the Scarborough Mirror. The result is hospitals will specialize, focusing on what they do best, Rouge
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: 192 billion reasons to fear privatization
Below is a list of the 11 US health corporations on the Fortune 500 list. They had a combined revenue of approximately $192 billion in 2010. They make billions of dollars in profits. Trying to reform America’s largely for-profit health care system is bound to come up against these
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: 2.7% average Ontario wage increase forecast
The Hay Group, a global management consulting firm operating in 48 countries, has forecast a 2.7% average wage increase in Ontario for 2013, the same as for 2012. The forecast is based on a survey of public and private sector employers. Notwithstanding this, the Ontario Liberal government is proposing a
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Liberal rush to outlaw free collective bargaining doesn’t add up
The Ontario Liberal government has largely justified its rush to outlaw free collective bargaining in the education sector by claiming that without such legislation junior teachers will be up for their normal increment steps on the wage grid as they accrue more experience as teachers. To wit, they argue: “Current teacher and support
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Homecare agency seeks $4.7 M to reduce deficit
The head of the Erie St. Clair Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) is seeking $4.68 million in new funding to help her agency deal with an $8 to $10 million deficit, the Sarnia Observer reports. CUPE Local 4370 president Brian Biggers told the Observer that worker hours have been reduced. “It’s
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Deaths associated with C. difficile sharply underestimated
A new report indicates that C. difficile is linked in hospital records to more than 30,000 deaths a year in the United States. That’s about twice as many as federal US estimates and rivals the 32,000 killed in traffic accidents in the US. USA Today reports that in March, the
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Betwixt amusement and outrage: boss & worker wages
It is, perhaps, amusing to see the various top public sector bosses and mucky-mucks caught with their hands in the cookie jar: the $81,250 bonus for the e-Health boss approved by the eHealth board (and then turned down when the public looked like it might be ready for a lynching),
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Long term care funding increase: workers bear the brunt
Four months into the fiscal year, and we now know that long term care funding per bed is going up 1.47% in Ontario. The area that will get the biggest increase will be “Raw Food”, which will see a 3% increase effective July 1. (The 3% is not counting a
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Home care cuts AND hospital cuts
The Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is planning to cut 22 hospital beds to deal with the government’s funding squeeze. The bed cuts are supposed to reduce the hospital’s deficit. The Ontario government has endlessly claimed that improved home care services will offset hospital cuts. “Rebalance” is the Health Minister’s word
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Why does the public care about $1.4 M salary at ORNGE?
If ORNGE were a for-profit corporation, it would be of little note that the CEO was paid a measly $1.4 million. That would put him in the little leagues of corporate big shots. Indeed, if it were a private corporation no one need ever know. Except that the CEO might
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: The Mop and Pail’s forlorn prayer for better privatization
The editorialists at the Globe and Mail took up the ORNGE disaster today and even they are vexed by the “Public Private Byzantinism” that went on there. Naturally, however, they are more worried that the episode will stop government from pursuing similar initiatives in the future. McGuinty and Co. just
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Hospital can’t turn beds over to retirement home
A Windsor hospital has been officially blocked from setting up hospital beds in a for-profit retirement home. As noted in June, the Hotel Dieu Hospital was trying to create 18 “assess and restore” hospital beds in a for-profit retirement home in Amhertsburg. The hitch for the Ministry of Health
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: ORNGE: no signs of learning
Health Minister Deb Matthews sticks to her guns alright, spinning a tale at yesterday’s legislative committee hearing suggesting she was unable to control ORNGE. The ORNGE boss stonewalled and manipulated the numbers, she claimed. The shenanigans at ORNGE are shocking, but it takes some believing that the government could not
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