Executive committee defers EMS essential service decision
Posted January 24, 2012 9:36 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The city’s executive committee has voted to defer their decision on an EMS essential service designation until a staff report is completed.
Earlier Tuesday paramedics rallied outside Toronto City Hall demanding they be designated an essential service in order to maintain 100 per cent staff levels and have the same rights as police and firefighters in the event of a labour disruption.
In the event of a lockout or strike of the city’s outside workers on Feb. 5, Toronto EMS (Emergency Medical Services) would operate at 85 per cent, according to a recent decision by the Ontario Labour Relations Board. No support staff would show up for work.
“We work side-by-side, experiencing the best and worst of humanity all in a day’s work,” Roberta Scott, director of the Ontario Paramedics Association, told the executive committee.
“Paramedics all know that every call we do is 100 per cent essential and every single patient out there deserves to be 100 per cent essential.”
No EMS employees could strike if it received the essential service designation, which is applied to police, firefighters and the TTC.
An essential service designation would mean any labour dispute would go to provincial binding arbitration. Treating paramedics the same as police and firefighters would also mean a pay hike and changes in benefits, something the city can’t afford right now, according to Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday.
Paramedics insist they’re not looking for more money or for an earlier retirement age.
“All that Paramedics want in return for giving up their right to strike is a fair process of binding interest arbitration,” the Toronto Paramedics Association said in a statement last week. “The City of Toronto has thus far refused to provide this.”
Paramedics made deputations at an executive committee meeting Tuesday, where a motion supporting making EMS an essential service — put forward by Coun. Gloria Lindsay Luby — was debated. The meeting later went in-camera, meaning members of the public and the media couldn’t sit in.
“This is unacceptable, as during the last work stoppage, Emergency Medical Services’ ambulance response times dropped by 20 per cent, risking the lives and safety of Toronto residents. It is of the utmost importance that the City’s responses to the most critical calls for emergency medical service continue to be properly served at all times,” Luby’s motion states.
Meanwhile, talks between CUPE Local 416 and city negotiators continue ahead of the lockout or strike deadline of Feb. 5.
