Nearly 3,000 home and community health-care workers hit the chilly picket lines across Ontario Friday as CEOs, managers and administrators stepped up to the front lines.

Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) workers voted to strike on Thursday evening after negotiations between the Ontario Nurses Association (ONA) and the CCACs broke down over wages. All but one of the CCAC catchment areas with representation by ONA voted to strike.

Im really, really pleased with the 3,000 of them that are out there on the line today, said ONA president Linda Haslam-Stroud, who was out picketing with union members in Newmarket. Theyre resolved to ensuring that this employer steps up to the plate.

The striking CCAC workers include registered practical nurses, rapid response registered nurses, care co-ordinators and direct care nurse practitioners. Their roles include helping patients transition from a hospital to home care, working with students to provide mental health supports, connecting patients with ongoing home care and creating support plans for recovering patients.

Haslam-Stroud describes the health care workers as the cog in the wheel for health care.

Haslam-Stroud said CCAC workers cared for her elderly parents for the past seven years, helping them live at home despite her mothers severe dementia. Without them, her mother would have been forced to live in a long-term care facility, she said.

She couldnt toilet herself. She could not dress herself, she said. It was only because of these care co-ordinators (that they could live at home).

The strike news meant hundreds of thousands of who rely on CCAC services each year woke up to uncertainty about their care.

Today is a challenging day for the CCAC team, OACCAC spokesperson Megan Allen-Lamb told the Star.

The impact of Fridays strike on patient care varied across the province, she said, adding contingency plans were in the works for months.

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3,000 home and community care workers on strike across Ontario