Posts published in April 2026

CUPE’s Extendicare Central Bargaining Table is holding strategic planning meetings in Markham this week, one month after negotiations ended with Extendicare. The eight CUPE locals from across Ontario represent over 1100 long-term care workers at various Extendicare facilities in the province. This central bargaining table sets the pattern for collective bargaining in the sector. 

Extendicare and the Central Table broke off bargaining on April 1^st with many items outstanding on the table. Central Table committee members held votes for job action with their locals, receiving 99% mandate from the members across the locals. While long-term care workers in Ontario can’t go on strike, other job actions are being considered to pressure the employer back to the table. Our members are prepared to use all options at our disposal to exercise our rights and win a fair contract for our members, and all long-term care workers in Ontario. 

Extendicare made $96.6 million in profits in 2025. This for-profit provider can afford to provide fair wages, good benefits, and correct the issues caused by their systems. Instead, they have withdrawn from bargaining without meaningful engagement, hoping instead to push the process to Interest Arbitration in hopes that an arbitrator will force concessions on long-term care workers. 

From scheduling, vacation, and pay issues caused by the implementation of the employer’s Human Resources management system workday, to benefits and annual pay increases, the parties were unable to find common ground. Despite working with a neutral conciliator. This delay will continue to impact long-term care workers who already have lower wages and lesser working conditions compared to other health care workers in other sectors. 

CUPE represents over 30,000 long-term care and retirement home workers across the province and has consistently set the pattern followed by other unions bargaining in the long-term care and retirement sector in Ontario. CUPE’s Extendicare Central Table is hopeful that Extendicare will return to the table with a meaningful offer that meets our members’ needs. 

CUPE says the rosier-than-expected financial picture painted in Tuesday’s Spring Economic Update means the federal government can – and should – be investing in public services and the workers who deliver them.

In particular, CUPE says while the $6 billion recruitment initiative for the trades is welcome news, it is disappointing to see the initiative leaves out care economy workers. 

“Anyone waiting for surgery, a child care spot, or a long-term care bed can tell you there’s a staffing crisis in our care economy right now,” said CUPE National President Mark Hancock. “We need to see the same level of commitment from the government in the care economy that we are seeing for the trades.”

CUPE is also raising serious concerns about the government’s plans to lower CPP contribution rates, noting it could increase long-term risk and jeopardize retirement security for Canadians relying on CPP and pension benefits. That is not the way to make life more affordable for working Canadians.

The Update also indicates no increases for the Canada Health Transfer, no allocations for pharmacare, and no new allocations for dental care beyond 2028.

“The best way to make Canada stronger in the face of our current economic threats is by investing in the services that our communities rely on to thrive,” said CUPE National Secretary-Treasurer Candace Rennick. “The government repeatedly acknowledges that programs like national child care have made life more affordable for Canadians, but they aren’t making the necessary investments for these programs to be truly accessible to the millions of families who need them.”  

CUPE is also voicing concerns about the government’s proposed new “sovereign wealth fund”, which would stand up $25 billion in public funding – and potentially sell off existing public assets – to back private ventures in infrastructure, as well as natural resource extraction and agriculture.

“CUPE supports the idea of a wealth fund that works for Canadians, but this looks like another way for investors to privatize our vital public infrastructure, while funnelling more public dollars into private coffers,” said CUPE National President Mark Hancock.

On April 28, the National Day of Mourning, members of OCEU/CUPE 1750 are joining workers across Ontario to remember those who have been killed, injured, or have become ill on the job and to call for urgent improvements to the systems meant to protect them.

CUPE 1750 represents more than 3,800 workers at the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, WSIB, and Infrastructure Health & Safety Association, IHSA. This year, the union is marking the day not only in remembrance, but with a renewed push for reform through its campaign, aimed at strengthening protections for Ontario’s workers.

“Today is about remembrance, but it must also be about action,” said Harry Goslin, president of OCEU/CUPE 1750. “Every day, we see the consequences when workers aren’t properly protected — whether that’s on the job site or when they turn to the compensation system for help only to learn they are among one in four Ontario workers not covered.”

While the union acknowledges recent improvements announced by the provincial government, including increasing Loss of Earnings benefits from 85 to 90%, potential changes to end benefit cut-offs at age 65, and extending coverage to privately operated residential care facilities, it says these steps fall short of what workers need.

“These changes show progress is possible,” said Goslin. “But the reality is that too many workers are still falling through the cracks, and the system itself is under strain.”

One in four workers in Ontario do not have WSIB coverage, leaving 1.56 million workers without access to compensation or support if they are injured at work. At the same time, frontline WSIB staff are facing a severe workload crisis with a recent survey showing that WSIB staff face the worst workload levels in Canada for two years in a row.

“That workload crisis has real consequences,” Goslin added. “When staff are stretched too thin, service suffers — the Ontarian’s we are here to serve pay the price.”

Through their Universal coverage campaign, the Union is calling on the provincial government to take concrete steps to fix the system and better protect workers, including:

• Expanding WSIB coverage to all workers in Ontario
• Ending age-based discrimination in benefits
• Restoring cuts to retirement and compensation benefits
• Increasing investment in workplace injury and illness prevention
• Ending the practice of deeming, which reduces benefits based on unrealistic job matches
• Holding employers accountable for suppressing injury claims
• Fully staffing the WSIB to ensure timely and effective service

“Ontario’s workers deserve a system that is there for them when they need it most,” said Goslin. “Our campaign is about protecting the people who too often get left behind — the injured, the ill, and those without coverage at all.”

On today’s Day of Mourning, unions across the province urge government leaders, employers, and the public to honour workers not just with words, but with meaningful action.

“The best way to remember those we’ve lost is to fight for the living,” said Goslin. “No worker should be left unprotected, and no one should have to fight just to be treated fairly after a workplace injury.”

On the National Day of Mourning, CUPE hospital and long-term care workers called for action from the provincial and federal governments to protect them from violence, which has worsened since the pandemic.

“Canada’s high tolerance of violence against women soaks inevitably into our institutions, like hospitals and long-term care facilities”, said Sharon Richer, secretary-treasurer of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions-CUPE. “Combine this with the serious understaffing that fuels anger towards staff, and this workforce is vulnerable and victimized. Staff have been killed, some have been assaulted such that they will never work again, thousands are physically and sexually assaulted every year. This makes for an unsafe and toxic working environment.”

Ontario cut hospital funding by two per cent in real terms in 2025 and plans cuts of more than two per cent in 2026. CUPE is calling on the provincial government to fund hospitals at their real costs and to make investments in adding staff and beds, to reduce waiting times.

“We call on the province to fund our health facilities at their real costs and to add staff and beds. We ask for legislation that provides for nurse-patient ratios, to ensure that care is of high quality and there are enough staff. We also call on the federal government to amend the Canadian Criminal Code to make violence against health care workers on the job a more serious offence for the purpose of sentencing,” said Michael Hurley, President of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions-CUPE.

April 28 has been designated as the National Day of Mourning for workers killed and injured on the job in Canada. Seven health care workers died of COVID-19 after healthcare facilities and the provincial government reversed its position that COVID was an airborne virus. CUPE had to go to court to force proper protective equipment for the healthcare workers.