CUPE VOWS NOT TO HELP ONTARIO TEST WELFARE RECIPIENTS FOR ILLEGAL DRUG USE

Toronto (CP) - Ontario's social service workers have vowed they will not
help in the provincial government's plan to test welfare recipients for drugs.

About 60 members of the social service sector of the Canadian Union of
Public Employees agreed Saturday they won't comply with the Conservative
government's latest initiative in welfare reform.

The agreement came at an annual conference of about 200 CUPE leaders from
across Ontario.

"Esentially, what these workers ... are saying is that they will no longer
be used by the heartless Tories to do their dirty work for them," said Sid
Ryan, Ontario president of CUPE.

In a controversial announcement last week, Ontario Social Services Minister
John Baird said those who test positive for illegal drugs and refuse
treatment will be cut off from social assistance.

The provincial government still hasn't revealed what case workers will play
in the process, but Ryan had his own predictions.

"It'll be up to our case workers having to go out and break the news (of
the loss of benefits)," he said. "Some of these people will be desperate
and we're there to take away the very last strand of their safety net."

CUPE also passed a resolution to hold public hearings paralleling those
planned by the province during six weeks of consultation scheduled with
municipalities and legal experts.

"We think the Tory public hearings will be a sham," Ryan said. "We want to
set up alternative hearings to attract those people who would not even be
invited to the others - for instance, the Ontario Coalition Against
Poverty, the homeless folks, the people on welfare."

Ontario's plan to test welfare recipients for drugs - which would be the
first of its kind in Canada - has angered activists who say it would
violate human rights.

Baird has said the plan isn't punitive, though it may involve the police.