THUNDER BAY - Nearly 300 full-time and part-time staff working for the St. Joseph's Care Group at Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital will receive retroactive pay increases as the result of an arbitration award.
A provincial arbitration panel has ruled that 237 members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union working in the paramedical/professional unit at the LPH site should get across-the-board pay hikes of 1.4 per cent in each year of a 3-year term retroactive to April 1, 2016.
The panel awarded the same increase for the first two years to 61 OPSEU members working in the nursing unit at the LPH. In the third year, they will be entitled to any increase agreed to in bargaining between the Ontario Nurses Association and participating hospitals.
The LPH is scheduled for closure next year.
In addition to the pay increases, the arbitration ruling includes some fringe benefit improvements, notably 5 weeks of vacation entitlement after 12 years of service instead of 13 years, and 7 weeks vacation entitlement after 27 years of service rather than 28 years. In 2019, that will change to 7 weeks after 25 years.
