For Immediate Release

Labour Council Supporting Workers at Rideauwood Addictions and Family Services

OTTAWA – The Ottawa and District Labour Council is expressing support and solidarity for workers at the Rideauwood Addictions and Family Services located on Parkdale Avenue in Ottawa.  The 40 workers, members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union Local 454, recently voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action if necessary.

“At a time when our city is experiencing a mental health and addictions crisis on so many fronts an employer here in that field is seemingly thumbing their nose at those very workers who are doing their best to make a difference.  This despite a low wage, no WSIB protection, a massive workload leading to significant retention issues,” said Sean McKenny, president of the Ottawa and District Labour Council.

Rideauwood Addiction and Family Services was founded in 1976 and provides mental health and addictions counselling services across the city.  It serves adults, youth, young adults, and family members who are or who have been affected by addiction and substance abuse, as well as problem gambling. 

“Some communities in this province have called a state of emergency over the widening opioid crisis.  The work provided by counsellors at Rideauwood is needed now more than ever, clients’ lives could be on the line,” added McKenny.  

The Ottawa and District Labour Council (ODLC) has been the voice of working people in the Ottawa area since 1872.  The ODLC currently represents 90 union locals with a combined membership of 50,000 workers and is the largest democratic and popular organization in the Ottawa area. 

Contacts:
Sean McKenny                                                 613 862-5150
Ottawa & District Labour Council                    613 233-7820

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On behalf of the OLC Women’s Committee Chair

Good morning,

Today, December 6^th, 2023, marks the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.  It is a day to commemorate the 14 lives lost at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique in 1989 as well as lives lost to femicide and gender-based violence throughout the year.  This year marks the 34^th year since that horrendous attack.

As we continue to recognize the 16 days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence that commenced November 25th on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and culminating December 10^th on International Human Rights Day we reaffirm our commitment to act against gender-based violence.

The annual vigil in Ottawa is being held this evening at 6:00pm at Minto Park (corner of Elgin street and Gilmour street) at the site of the Ottawa Women’s Monument.  Please attend if you can.

Thank you.

In solidarity,

Chrisy Tremblay
Ottawa Labour Council Women’s Committee Chair

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Guy Quenneville · CBC News

Baristas and shift supervisors at Ottawa’s Bridgehead coffeehouses who just got minimum wage boosts are being unfairly punished by a new policy that adds managers to their tip pools, a local labour group says.

Sean McKenny, president of the Ottawa & District Labour Council, said the tip-sharing change — which Bridgehead confirmed to CBC — takes away from the gains recently made by minimum wage workers.

The Ontario government hiked the minimum wage by just over a dollar, to $16.55 an hour, on Oct. 1.

“It really is hard to understand,” said McKenny of Bridgehead’s decision. “Especially at a time when those minimum wage workers need that increase in wages.”

Bridgehead, which began as an Ottawa-owned company and was acquired by Toronto-based Aegis Brands in 2019, declined to be interviewed.

In an emailed statement, Bridgehead president Paul Pascal said managers were added to the pool in October “to acknowledge their contributions.”

“Our coffeehouse managers have always been an integral part of the team, actively contributing to the exceptional guest experience we strive to provide,” Pascal said. 

The inclusion of front-line managers in tip-sharing is not new, with workers at a restaurant in Niagara Falls, Ont., going on strike partly over that issue in 2019.

Change might be ‘distressing,’ company warns

Bridgehead operates 21 cafés in Ottawa, according to its website.

According to a staff note sent to employees at one downtown location, the minimum wage hike affected the hourly pay of baristas and supervisors, and “instead of increasing the managers’ salary accordingly, Bridgehead has decided to include managers in tips as their raise” as of Oct. 9.

“Since all our tips are divided equally by the hours worked at our store,” the note continued, “adding another person’s hours to this will impact the amount of money each of you can expect to receive in tips.”

The note acknowledged the change “may be distressing.” Coffeehouse staff were consulted about the change, Pascal added in his statement to CBC.

McKenny said it was “absolutely ridiculous” Bridgehead was using tips meant for their “lowest-paid workers” to boost managers’ pay.

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

Staff resent change, says barista

A barista who works at a different downtown location told CBC the minimum wage increase “was effectively [made] moot by the decrease in tips.” 

CBC has agreed not to name her because she’s worried about losing her job. 

The salaried managers’ raise came to the detriment of “our take-home income and not at the expense of the company,” she said via email.

Staff have met the news with a mix of annoyance and resentment, she added.

• Ontario minimum wage rises to $16.55 an hour; advocates say still not a living wage
• MARKETPLACERestaurants ‘taking from Peter to pay Paul’ amid minimum wage hike

In an interview, she said that while she’s not personally opposed to managers sharing in tips, she’s worried the new system might incentivize them to schedule themselves for more floor hours, which could take hours away from baristas and supervisors.

The staff note at the other location said there is a limit on how many hours managers can claim for tips. It also encouraged employees to talk to a supervisor if they thought a manager was “claiming more than what they are owed in tips.”

The barista said she’s worried about how that process would work.

She also said staff at her coffeehouse were informed about the change just a few days before it took effect, and that she wasn’t consulted beforehand. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Guy Quenneville

Reporter at CBC Ottawa

Guy Quenneville is a reporter at CBC Ottawa. He can be reached at guy.quenneville@cbc.ca

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The Jamaican government visited a number of Ontario farms last week after migrant workers claimed they were required to work “like animals” in an open letter currently under review by the Canadian government.

The visits come on the heels of a tense season for migrant farmers in Canada’s temporary foreign worker program and shortly after a group of workers in Brantford, Ont. penned the open letter published on Justice for Migrant Workers’ website.

The letter did not identify the farm, but an advocate for Justice for Migrant Workers confirmed the farmers who wrote the letter worked at Komienski Farms.

“These bosses, they think of Jamaicans overall, they think of us as some type of a slave, the way they talk to us, the way they greet us,” a 32-year-old Jamaican worker involved in the letter, who CTV News Toronto will call Alex, said while speaking from Komienski Farms.

“I don’t want to say they are racist, but I do think it sometimes,” he said.

The farm has not responded to CTV News Toronto’s repeated requests for comment.

Federal Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault’s spokesperson said, in a statement issued on Wednesday, the government is working to ensure temporary foreign workers are safe, and treated with respect and dignity.

“But we know that is not always the case,” they said.

BATHROOM BREAKS AND BED BUGS

Jamaica Labour Minister Pearnel Charles Jr. travelled to more than 10 farms in Ontario last week, beginning with Komienski Farms – pinpointing “notable locations” from prior reports – and visiting Queen’s Park on Thursday. In a subsequent video, he vocalized his commitment to the rights and working conditions of Jamaican migrant farmers.

“I just want to make sure that this month the issue is resolved. Because we are all imperfect, but we are working to improve,” the minister said.

The letter, released on Oct. 18 in conjunction with the Canada-Caribbean Community summit in Ottawa, described bunkhouses infested with bed bugs and constraints on bathroom breaks, claiming these issues are not new. Open letters published in previous years, such as in Aug. 2022, have equated the program to “systematic slavery” in Canada.

CTV News Toronto spoke directly to two of the farmers involved in crafting the recent document.

Junior, a 36-year-old Jamaican who has been farming vegetables in southwestern Ontario for eight years, said this is the year he decided to take a stand.

“We say enough is enough. We can’t take this anymore,” he said.

He said this season, he’s been denied a bathroom break while out in the field or in the packing house and told it’s “company policy” to wait until an official break. But at times, Junior said he doesn’t even have time to go to the bathroom during his break because of the time it takes to transition from field to field.

Alex voiced the identical issue. “The first time, I didn’t do anything, but the last time, I punched out and stopped working,” he said.

“But I know with me doing that … there won’t be any requests for me,” he said, referring to the hiring process that selects farmers from Mexico, Jamaica and other Caribbean countries.

Alex has been working in Brantford since March, most recently harvesting squash and sweet peppers for the fall season. Since he arrived, his bunkhouse has been infested with bedbugs, he said.

“When we just got here, we found one [bed bug], and then we spoke to them about it and [they] gave [us] spray and powders and removed a few bunk beds,” Alex said, showing a red, irritated bite on his skin in a photo to CTV News Toronto.

He said the employer finally brought someone to treat the bedbugs, only after Service Canada paid a visit to the farm, but the bugs came back.

‘PAY THE PRICE’

In response to the open letter, the spokesperson for Canada’s Ministry of Labour pointed to Boissonnault’s Oct. 5. Senate committee comments in which he warned bad actors that he will “find them and they will pay the price” if they mistreat or abuse migrant workers.

As the season nears its end for many temporary foreign farmers, Junior and Alex said they fear the financial ramifications their families could face if it is their last. “The farm has a tendency to not ask you back when you speak out at work,” Junior said. According to the workers, a fellow farmer who spoke out about work conditions to an official with the Ministry of Employment and Social Development last year was not called back.

In the open letter, they write: “We have left our children, spouses, parents, siblings, friends and other loved ones to come here.”

“We came to this country to get better – we came for more than this low-paying job. We should have the ability to work in a place that treats us with respect. We are no different than the generations of migrant workers that came before us.” 

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“It sucks,” was the blunt assessment of Mike Hall, a business representative for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and a member of Local 636’s bargaining unit.

Talks between the union and the city-owned power utility broke off on Aug. 23, but the two sides met on Monday with the help of non-binding mediation, and Hall said the only outstanding issue is pay.

“I would say we’re close. In the beginning, there were a boatload of issues, but right now it’s compensation. And I’d say we were close.”

IBEW Local 636 represents about 400 trades and technical Hydro Ottawa employees and inside workers such as customer service representatives. Their contract expired on March 31.

City council was to have received Hydro Ottawa’s annual report Wednesday, but at the utility’s request deferred the report until its Oct. 25 meeting because of the strike.

In an emailed statement Wednesday, Hydro Ottawa said its “focus remains on our day-to-day operations, and making every effort to minimize the impact of this labour disruption on our customers.

“Hydro Ottawa continues to respect the collective bargaining process, including negotiating in good faith. Until an agreement is reached, our contingency plans remain in effect, and our commitment remains the same: providing a safe, reliable, affordable and renewable supply of electricity to our customers.”

The utility’s most recent offer was a cumulative wage increase of 14.74 per cent over four years, something it called “very generous in comparison to recent industry trends.”

Hall, however, said Hydro Ottawa was the most difficult employer of any of the 13 IBEW contracts he has negotiated.

“I have peace everywhere but here. My only problem is here in Ottawa,” Hall said.

“It’s old-school thinking. They think if they have lots of grievances they’re managing their people properly. But how is that 2023 thinking? In all my other employers, the goal is zero grievances.”

It is the first strike at Hydro Ottawa since 2004.

article by Blair Crawford, Ottawa Citizen

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The ONA and the province are embroiled in negotiations for a new bargaining agreement for nurses in Ontario and are calling for better wages and addressing other concerns impacting healthcare across the province.

“We are negotiating benefits and wages and the usual things that come up in contract negotiations,” she said. “But also, things that affect our quality of life and work life balance and affects the patients we care for. The changes we need will impact not only nurses, but the people we care for because if we can bring back nurses, we can bring back better care and safer care and move away from private care.”

CityNews

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