TorontoOver the past 20-years successive provincial governments have ignored the needs and growing plight of the tens of thousands of people in Ontario with developmental disabilities.
The people who work with the developmentally disabled have, for years, sounded the alarm that the systemic under-funding of adequate community services and support, is hurting vulnerable people, their families and workers who must pick up the slack where government dollars fail, says Sid Ryan the Ontario president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
Front line staff working at community agencies in Toronto, Fort Frances, Kirkland Lake and Hamilton will join Ryan for a media conference at the Queens Park Media Studio, on Tuesday, November 13, 2001 at 11 a.m.
Chronic under-funding of services has meant agencies have little money to provide on-going training for staff, and to pay decent wages. The result is high staff turnover, worker burn out, increasing labour disputes and a system in turmoil.
-30-
For more information please contact:
Sid Ryan, President CUPE Ontario - (416) 209-0066
Stella Yeadon, CUPE Communications - (416) 578-8774
opeiu 343 sharemedia11112a01.acl