On April 25, 2020, the government of Ontario announced a temporary four dollar per hour pay raise for front line workers. In addition, employees working over 100 hours per month are set to receive lump sum payments of $250 per month for each of the next four months (from April 24, 2020, until August 13, 2020). For an eligible employee averaging 40 hours per week, that amounts to an extra $3,560 per month.
Eligible work places and workers include the following (management positions excluded):
Health care and long-term care
Eligible workplaces
- Acute hospitals
- Long-term care homes (including private, municipal and not-for-profit homes)
- Licensed retirement homes
- Home and community care
Eligible workers
- Personal support workers
- Registered nurses
- Registered practical nurses
- Nurse practitioners
- Attendant care workers
-
Auxiliary staff, including:
- Porters, cook, custodian, housekeeping, laundry facilities and other key workers.
- Developmental services workers
- Mental health and addictions workers
Social services
Eligible workplaces
- Homes supporting people with developmental disabilities
- Intervenor residential sites
- Indigenous healing and wellness facilities/shelters
- Shelters for survivors of gender-based violence and human trafficking
- Youth justice residential facilities
- Licensed children's residential sites
- Directly operated residential facility ? Child and Parent Resource Institute
- Emergency shelters
- Supportive housing facilities
- Respite/drop-in centres
- Temporary shelter facilities, such as re-purposed community centres or arenas
- Hotels/motels used for self-isolation and/or shelter overflow
Eligible workers
- Direct support workers (e.g. developmental service workers, staff in licensed children's residential sites, in-take/outreach workers)
- Clinical staff
- Housekeeping staff
- Security staff
- Administration personnel
- Maintenance staff
- Food service workers
- Nursing staff
Corrections
Eligible workplaces
- Adult correctional facilities and youth justice facilities in Ontario
Eligible workers
- Correctional officers
- Youth services officers
- Nurses
- Healthcare staff
- Social workers
- Food service
- Maintenance staff
- Programming personnel
- Administration personnel
- Institutional liaison officers
- TRILCOR personnel
- Native inmate liaison officers
- Chaplains
The government's news releases can be found here and here.
UPDATE
On April 29, 2020, the government announced that it was adding paramedics, public health nurses and addictions and mental health workers in hospitals and congregate care settings, and respiratory therapists to the list of workers eligible for the temporary increase.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
