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"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.
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