Plenty. Say hopping mad paramedics from across the province, in Toronto at founding ambulance workers’ conference
Toronto—For the last six years, the Ontario Tory government has shown nothing but contempt for paramedics and has repeatedly passed legislation detrimental to their individual and workers’ rights, say paramedics from across the province attending a founding conference for ambulance workers.
About 70 paramedics, dispatchers and ambulance workers who are members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) are delegates to the first annual CUPE Ontario Ambulance Workers Committee Conference scheduled in Toronto at the Carlton Place Hotel, Carlson Court (Toronto Airport) Sunday, February 24 and Monday, February 25.
The Tory attacks on the rights of paramedics include a mandatory flu shot, decertification without a hearing, a biased arbitration process and the elimination of the right to strike.
“This government’s approach to legislation dealing with paramedics is unprecedented and draconian. The citizens of Ontario respect paramedics and other ambulance workers and the valuable work they do. But the Tories have gone to great lengths to show nothing but contempt for them,” says Sid Ryan the Ontario president of CUPE, the union that represents more than half of the province’s 5,000 paramedics and ambulance workers.
Ryan will be speaking at the conference on Sunday at 9 a.m. He will encourage the delegates to continue their activism and to put political pressure on the Tory government to change the legislation that forces paramedics to get a flu shot, takes away their right to strike and puts them under a rigged arbitration process.
“No other worker in this province is forced to get a flu vaccine as a condition of employment and it is a fundamental violation of human rights to make paramedics comply to this biased legislation.
“Our members will continue to fight this government to get the Ambulance Act changed. Our paramedics deserve fairness and respect,” says Ryan.
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For more information please contact:
Sid Ryan, President CUPE Ontario
(416) 209-0066
Stella Yeadon, CUPE Communications
(416) 578-8774