"From the Left"

The 1998 Guelph Tribune columns

July 15, 1998

Sometimes, a strike will take on an importance that outweighs the workers involved. We can see this right now in two disputes that, on the surface, bear little resemblance to each other. One is far away, the other is close to home. In Flint, Michigan, two General Motors plants are on strike. As the effect of the shutdown rippled through the auto industry, workers at other General Motors facilities and at parts suppliers began to receive lay off notices. Closer to home, 74 nurses are on strike against the Waterloo-Wellington-Dufferin branch of the Victorian Order of Nurses (VON). They are part of a wider strike, involving almost 600 members of the Practical Nurses Federation of Ontario (PNFO) and the provincial VON. The General Motors strike is important because of the effect the workers are having on the economy. The nurses' strike is important because of the effect the economy is having on workers.

In their press releases, the local branch of the VON is making much of an unresolved dispute about car allowances. They claim the dispute turns around an eight cent difference in the rate paid for use of a car on the job. The union counters this by pointing to a 25 per cent reduction in wages, statutory holidays, vacations, and bereavement leave. The employer has also won significant changes limiting the nurses' rights at times of lay off, recall, job security and contracting out. The nurses have reached the limit of their ability to give back hard won rights and benefits.

The issues behind this strike go deeper than the tough decisions each side must make during bargaining. The root of the trouble is the way the Harris government is changing our way of life. The community care givers who work for the VON and other agencies are on the edge of the drift towards a privatized, two tier health care system. For the practical nurses, the drift began when the government established 43 Community Care Access Centres across the province. At the same time, they brought in a new competitive bidding system in which established, non-profit organizations like the VON had to go head to head against new, privately owned and profit oriented organizations. In order to compete against these unorganized companies, the VON began slashing the wages and benefits of its workers. The first to feel the hits were non-union staff and some managers. A collective agreement protected the nurses, but now that it has expired they are also feeling the blows. Executive director Sandra Hanmer admits all this in a press release where she talks about the "significant loss of market share" they suffered through Community Care Access Centres. She also talks about lobbying MPPs to express her concerns about "the competitive model of service delivery." Under this model, the providers of the cheapest services win the contracts and go on to receive public funding.

Practical nurses go into people's homes and care for the sick, the injured and the dying. They work under conditions unsuited for proper patient handling, and suffer back injuries and other ailments. They face hazards from violent and dysfunctional patients and frustrated family members. These nurses should be the best available, not the cheapest. Competitive bidding may well have a place within the automobile industry, but not within the health care system. The monetary issues in this strike are not nearly as deep as are the political and social issues.