There may be light at the end of the tunnel for striking health care co-ordinators in Ontario.
After 14 days on the picket line, the Ministry of Labour is bringing together the union and the province for a meeting Thursday in Toronto.
About 3,000 home and community health care workers with Community Care Access Centres hit the picket lines on Jan. 30.
The striking CCAC nurses are seeking a similar 1.4 per cent wage increase over the next two years, which is the same deal that nurses in hospitals, and long-term care homes were recently awarded.
The province has balked at agreeing to implementing the increase for nurses that help patients transition from hospital to home care, work with students with mental health issues in schools, and connect patients to ongoing home care.
At a rally in Goderich Wednesday, Linda Haslam-Stroud, the Ontario Nurses' Association president, told a crowd of approximately 150 picketers not to get their hopes up, but she' upbeat about the potential.
"I'm very feeling very positive that the Ministry of Labour has basically called the meeting to get the parties back to the table. This to me is a positive sign that we need to get to a collective agreement, and the employer's going to be at the table and they're going to have to step up to the plate. They can't freeze us out any longer."
Caroline McWhinney is the bargaining chair for the nurses in the South West Community Care Access Centres.
She says, "We're not asking for parity with the hourly rate of a hospital nurse. We're asking for the wage increase to our wages that our other sectors have got...Nursing homes, homes for aged, as well as the hospital nurses all got awarded an increase in their hourly rate."
The Ontario Nurses' Association also launched radio ads Wednesday explaining their side of the disagreement to the public.
