Statement in Support of Unionized Home Care Workers

To the Members of OPSEU Local 745:

Disability Justice Network of Ontario is committed to home care as a public good. Bayshore and their revenues are built on the backs of sick and disabled people, seniors, home care workers, and community nurses. For profit models of care only ensure the profits of executives and not based on ensuring the wellbeing of and justice for disabled care recipients, seniors, or care workers. Together, all of our struggles are united to ensure real, just care for our communities. 

We know that the Ontario Government has systematically encouraged companies like Bayshore in the home care industry to push for more profit over our health and our communities. OPSEU Local 745 workers are fighting not just for good wages and support for workers—but for investments in care for disabled people and seniors across Thunder Bay. We also know that there must be continued support for deinstitutionalization and a just care transition for all care workers.

We reaffirm that "[h]ome care is not a commodity. It’s a public service – and it must be protected". We need a world where we all can live our lives in our homes and communities without precarity and profit-driven austerity.

Disability Justice Network of Ontario was founded in Hamilton, Ontario in 2018 by disabled Ontarians to build a world where we are free to be—where we can be in community together, have political and social agency, and hold the powerful to account.