EMS Staff Move Closer to Strike as Union Seeks Higher Wages

Positive strike votes are nothing new in the labor movement. However, it’s rare, if not unheard of, for a union to vote 100% to strike in pursuit of higher wages.

This is the case in the Canadian county of Essex in Ontario, where members of Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 2974 voted unanimously to authorize strike action. They are employed by the Corporation of the County of Essex, which runs Essex-Windsor Emergency Medical Services (EWEMS). (To be precise, 79% of its members attended the strike vote meeting, and all of them voted in favor.)

After six months of negotiations failed, the union received a "No Board" report from the Ontario Ministry of Labour. This means the government will not appoint a conciliation board to help the two sides come to a deal. The Ministry issued the report on July 21, 2026, starting a 17-day countdown before either party is in a legal strike or lockout position.

Should a strike occur, an essential-service agreement will maintain emergency ambulance coverage in the area. The union received an order from the Ontario Labour Relations Board for an overall service reduction of approximately 20%. This reduction applies to all services provided, not exclusively front-line transport ambulances.

This dispute centers heavily on recruitment, retention, and a severe staffing shortage. Essex-Windsor EMS responds to more than 60,000 emergency calls every year, but staffing has not kept pace with the agency’s growing demand. According to a CUPE estimate, the service is short roughly 50 paramedics, leaving ambulances unstaffed and reducing regional coverage.

This heavy workload is increasing pressure on paramedics and slowing response times for critical emergencies. The average career length of a EWEMS paramedic service has dropped to just seven years. According to CUPE, recent independent research and union surveys have highlighted serious mental health concerns among EWEMS staff: 25% reported experiencing PTSD or depression, 28% reported insomnia, and 9% reported suicidal thoughts in the previous 14 days.

The County of Essex, which funds the EMS department through a 50/50 shared agreement with the province of Ontario, maintains that its wage rates are competitive when compared to similar paramedic services in Ontario. Under the terms of the recently expired Collective Agreement, the top EWEMS hourly wage is $49.50 for an advanced care paramedic and $46.52 for a primary care paramedic. 

EMS World Magazine offered the County of Essex an opportunity to be interviewed, but they declined.

"The County of Essex does not comment during active negotiations. However, we can refer you to the Frequently Asked Questions document on this subject, that is posted to the County’s website," the county said in a statement. In its online FAQ, the county emphasized that it "remains committed to the collective bargaining process and to reaching a fair, sustainable and negotiated agreement" and stresses that public safety is its highest priority.

The two sides are scheduled to return to the bargaining table on Aug. 5, 2026. To better understand the union's perspective as the strike deadline approaches, EMS World Magazine spoke with James Jovanovic. He is a paramedic with 17 years of experience and president of CUPE Local 2974, which represents 340 paramedics, logistics, and support staff. 

EMS WORLD: You recently had a strike vote and got a 100% mandate, is that correct?

JAMES JOVANOVIC: Correct. We had a 100% unanimous mandate from our membership. This is actually the second consecutive round of bargaining where we've had a 100% unanimous strike mandate. 

EMS WORLD: A 100% strike vote is incredibly rare. How did matters get to this point?

JOVANOVIC: I think it's just a result of the times that we're in, in the profession. We’ve faced a perpetually widening wage gap with police and fire for nearly 25 years. That gap has gotten more unsustainable each year.

After COVID, our membership finally realized that something needed to change. They know that they have the strength and the solidarity to have a change take place here locally, and they felt unanimously that this is something that we're obligated to do morally for the sake of the profession going forward and for today. 

EMS WORLD: What's going on? Why have things gotten this bad?

JOVANOVIC: The gap with our colleagues in police and fire is now approximately 18% to 25% across the province. It's around 19% for us locally. That gap has continued to widen year after year. Across the province, service administrators, chiefs, and labor law firms have been effective at keeping EMS wage increases at bay under the guise of restraint. Unfortunately, that's just created this unsustainable gap that needed a severe market correction. 

We're starting to see that market correction is now taking place at several EMS agencies in Ontario. Peel and Toronto led the way; Waterloo and York have followed suit. That will create an effect where there are essentially the haves and the have-nots.

For those EMS agencies that can't keep pace, all the current pressures in the sector will be exacerbated. We view locally that it's our obligation to make sure that, at minimum, we maintain pace with what we're currently seeing in the sector in collective bargaining. 

EMS WORLD: This isn’t just a problem of wages. You're short-staffed, and your people are reporting serious rates of PTSD and insomnia. Can you walk me through what else they're dealing with?

JOVANOVIC: It's largely connected. If you can’t compete with other emergency medical services—and it's not just wages, it's all compensation and supports such as mental health—then you'll never be able to compete for very limited staff. The OAPC believes that we need 1,200 paramedics a year just to maintain current levels of operation. Colleges are only producing approximately 700. That's a 500-person shortfall. 

All services in the province are competing for a very select few paramedics. If your service doesn't have the proper compensation and support in place, you will not be able to recruit or retain.

That's what we're seeing here locally in Essex-Windsor. That results in increased pressure and increased sick time, which becomes this self-perpetuating problem of more sick time and more down-staffing of ambulances. Right now, our membership is stuck right in the middle of that cycle with mounting pressure. 

EMS WORLD: What ideally would you like to see them do to turn it around?

JOVANOVIC: We need greater support for mental health, competitive wages and compensation, plus deliberate recruitment and retention initiatives to address the staffing and address young people wanting to come into the profession. We find these all to be connected, so there isn't any one thing, but it would start with codifying and acknowledging what is the issue that has created this problem. Doing so will also help correct it going forward. 

EMS WORLD: Are you still hoping to avoid a strike?

JOVANOVIC: We want to avoid a strike, but we will not avoid one by accepting an agreement that guarantees this crisis continues. There is still time to secure the future of Essex-Windsor EMS, but the county must step up at the bargaining table. There’s no paramedic in my service who wants to go on strike. Paramedics across Ontario enter this profession to help their communities by responding to emergencies, not to walk picket lines. Our members are no different.