BARRIE -- Picketers greeted management from
Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare early Tuesday morning in Barrie as they
arrived for a mediation session with the Ministry of Labour. OPSEU has
filed an unfair labour practices complaint against the hospital in
response to management actions intended to muzzle staff.
The hospital has sent letters of reprimand,
suspended one steward without pay, and fired another for their role in
fighting a plan to cut lab services in Bracebridge and Huntsville.
The picket is the beginning of a new campaign
by OPSEU to defend its members’ right to speak out on important issues
to the community. Newspaper and radio ads will be appearing throughout
the Muskoka region in the coming days.
OPSEU 1st Vice-President/Treasurer Patty Rout,
herself a lab technologist, said “these workers are being punished for
their passionate commitment to the work they do… if you want to shut
down or privatize health care services, OPSEU members are not going to
just shut up and do our jobs.”
While the MAHC CEO Barry Lockhart has said no
decision on lab cuts will be made until next March, he has a past
history with OPSEU after cutting lab services in Niagara during 2002.
While in charge of labs at the Niagara Health
System, Lockhart closed the last remaining NHS microbiology department
and contracted the work out to private for-profit MDS labs.
