1% pay increase under public-sector wage cap a 'slap in the face,' Ontario registered nurses say

Registered nurses in Ontario hospitals say the one year, oneper cent wage increaseawarded to them under the legislation that caps public-sector wagesdevalues the work they do.

The arbitration decision, handed down Monday, stings more because nurses have been on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, according toEstelle Frost-Cleary, who's been a registered nursein Toronto for 29 years.

"One per cent is a slap in the face," she said. "Nurses are working twice as hard, longer hours and under unbearable conditions in some cases."

She said the morale among her circle of nurses is "as low as I've ever seen it."

Moreover, she says she and others she knowsstill haven't received the $4-per-hour top-up in pandemic pay, even thoughthe province saidthe funds startedto flow this week.

Generally speaking, rates of pay for full-time registered nurses start at around $33.23per hour,reaching as high as $47.57per hour,according to the Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA) website referring to the previous collective agreement.

'A gender issue'

The union also expressed disappointment in the arbitration ruling.

"This does not acknowledge what we do in the health-care system, it doesn't respect us for what we do, and acknowledge how critical we are," said ONA president Vicki McKenna.

According to the union, the increase, which is less than the rate of inflation at two per cent, has been a pattern for the last decade.

This time around, McKenna said the ONA's hands are tied in the bargaining process because of legislation the province passed last fall that capped public sector wage increases at one per cent. It applies to teachers and nurses, but not local police or doctors.

"It's a predominantly female work force. It feel very much like a gender issue and that's disconcerting."

In a statement to CBC News, thepress secretary forthe president of the Treasury Boardsaid all municipal employees are exempt, including police officers, firefighters and public health unit employees, and the bill applies to more than one million people spanning different sectors.

"Any suggestion that it targets any demographic group [is] totally baseless," Sebastian Skamski wrote.

McKenna also said the legislation interferes with the process of collective bargaining and cites that as a reason the union launched a charter challenge last December against Bill 124.

Hailed as heroes

In May, Premier Doug Ford hailednurses as the "heroes on the front-line of our health-care system," but Frost-Clearysays she feels like anything but.

"You're called front-line and you're called essential but you're really a body that can replaced."

She said she and other nurses she speaks with also feel the union representing them as well as they should be, stating she wants the ONA to communicate with members more and doa more effective job of lobbying the government.

McKenna said the union hasbeen pushing the province.

"With this legislation in place, and the confines that it provides us, it makes it really difficult."

Nurses are also deemed essential workers, so they don't have the ability to go on strike.

The Ford governmentsaid it's committed to protecting public sector jobs and the "fiscal health of the province."