‘It’s going to bankrupt health care’: Spending on temp agency nurses up more than 550% since pre-pandemic at one Toronto hospital network
‘The temporary workers are not paid like real nurses,’ says one nurse at a hospital site where this is happening
‘If you’re going to call me a temp, you need to do it with more conviction’: Toronto nurses decry temp agency workers
(Toronto Star)Toronto nurses have launched a scathing attack on the temporary staffing agency nurses, deriding them as “disrespectful”, a “new and dangerous level of exploitation” and a “fraud”.
The nurses, who have been on strike at hospital sites in the city in a dispute over longer hours for hospital nurses, called for the temporary nurses to be decertified so they can keep their jobs and receive the same wages as nurses with full-time and permanent positions.
“The temporary workers are not paid like real nurses,” said one of the nurses, one of three at a hospital site in south Toronto where this is happening. The nurses said they were being paid like temp workers, but they are really working for the hospital. They have no benefits.
“They’re basically running the show,” said one of the nurses, who works at the hospital and has been on strike since March 1, the first day of the dispute.
“The management here at this hospital would rather use the temp workers than nurses,” said the nurse, adding that she felt sorry for the temp workers, because they are forced to work “for free”.
“They don’t even get paid,” she said. “They work 12 hour shifts and are in overtime.”
The nurse who works at the hospital site declined to be named, because she did not want her “name associated with this type of nonsense”.
Two others
