Hearing services workers across Ontario strike for higher pay

Roughly 200 workers across Ontario who support people who are deaf, deafblind, or hard of hearing are striking in an effort to secure higher wages.

Those workers include counsellors, audiologists and interpreters, a handful of whom formed a picket line outside the Canadian Hearing Services building in Windsor on Thursday. 

"We wanna be working right now," said Karly Green, a hearing care counsellor. "We don't wanna be out here."

CUPE 2073 members have been on strike since Monday — their second strike in eight years. Last time, the strike lasted 10 weeks, which the union says it doesn't want to see happen again. 

"I've been an employee for 35 years and nothing would please me more than to be back with my clients as soon as possible," said Mara Waern, president of CUPE 2073. "We didn't want this to break down and we didn't want this to happen."

Canadian Hearing Services said no one from the company was available for an interview Thursday. But in a press release, the company said it had "proposed a generous renewal offer for a one-year collective agreement" that included "an overall compensation increase of 4.9 per cent over the prior year."

Canadian Hearing Services claimed that the union had responded with a demand for "an increase of 30.5 per cent over the course of three years," which "is not based in the realities of our business and available resources." 

But Waern says that's wrong. "That 30.5 per cent is not a wage increase," she said. "It was the total input of proposals from all the members," such as more leave and better pensions. 

She also said the union was only given 24 hours to respond to the company's offer, and didn't have enough time to have it interpreted for their deaf and hard of hearing staff members.

The union is asking for a two-year contract that includes a two per cent wage increase in the first year and a three per cent increase the next, Waern said. 

In a press release, the union said that workers at Canadian Hearing Services "have seen their wages fall 16 per cent behind inflation while senior management have enjoyed double-digit percentage increases."

The union says it's also concerned about staffing levels, which "have plummeted in recent years" from a high of more than 500, "impacting the quality and depth of services." 

Green, who provides care to seniors in their homes, said they're eager to get back to serving their many clients in the region.

"We're all really concerned about our clients," they said. "I know that in my program working with seniors, a lot of them don't have access to this care any other way. They need these services for us to be able to come there. So we would really just like to get back to work."

Green said the union went on strike when the company chose not to extend the previous contract to keep them working until a new one could be ratified. 

"We wanted to continue working, however our protections were taken away from us at work," they said. "So we had to go on strike to protect ourselves from that."

Canadian Hearing Services said in an email that "there are no negative impacts on Deaf and hard of hearing people in Windsor, as [they] continue to provide services."

A notice on the company's website says some services are affected, however. "Our hearing clinics are closed and audiology services are unavailable due to a labour disruption," the site says. "Many other services remain available on a priority basis." 

It's also "less service for the clients," Waern says, and "not the quality of service that they're accustomed to."

Waern said the company has replaced some workers with personal support workers (PSW) 

"But PSWs are not skilled in the different forms of sign language," she said. "They're not skilled in leading people who have drastically reduced vision."

The next bargaining day is May 6.