Today, the 120 members of Westman Regional Lab (MGEU Local 351) have given their employer, Diagnostics Services Manitoba (DSM), a two-week notice of their intention to begin strike action commencing at 12:00 p.m. (noon) on Monday, November 14, 2011.
Westman Lab members voted in favour of strike action several weeks ago, but were required to establish essential services requirements in front of an arbitrator. The two-week notice is mandated as by the Essential Services (Health Care) Act and under the terms of Westman Lab’s current collective agreement, which expired September 30, 2010.
“This has been an extremely difficult process for these employees,” said MGEU President Lois Wales, “They know their importance within our health care system and the role they play in providing life saving tests, but they have exhausted their options through the collective bargaining process, and their last resort is to take job action.”
Issues that remain outstanding between the Westman Lab bargaining committee and their employer DSM include workload, length of contract, wages and other monetary items. Westman Lab employees are also being offered less at the bargaining table than has been offered to other laboratory employees who do similar work in Manitoba.
“Chief among these issues for Westman Lab employees has been workload, and the extent of the problem has been underlined by the essential services decision brought down by the arbitrator,” Wales said. “In some cases the arbitrator is saying the lab requires more staff to provide essential services than they would have working in some departments under normal circumstances. That tells me the employees have been working miracles in delivering services on behalf of Manitobans in the most stressful, demanding, and frankly unfair of circumstances.”
With more and more being asked of employees in delivering tests, concerns at Westman have focused on the real possibility of potential medical errors being made.
Ultimately, DSM’s offer of wage freezes only compounds the issues at Westman Lab, which will no doubt have difficulty in keeping the committed staff they currently have, Wales said. Diagnostics Services Manitoba needs to look seriously at increasing staffing levels, but compensation needs to be part of the solution here to retain the workers we have, she said.
Westman Lab is the reference laboratory for 117 medical facilities across the province, including most of the health care service providers in rural Manitoba, the Brandon Regional Health Authority, as well as some facilities in Winnipeg. In 2010/11, the lab handled about 2.9 Million procedures. Workload has increased by 12% in the current year to date. A disruption in service could cause delays in the delivery of test results and the possible cancellation of some surgeries.