LifeLabs employees within the Higher Toronto Space and Kitchener-Waterloo have reached tentative agreements forward of their Saturday strike deadline, the Ontario Public Service Workers Union (OPSEU) stated Friday night.
Couriers and mail clerks working for Lifelabs in Ontario, who deal with samples and blood specimens, may have walked off the job on Saturday as a part of a labour dispute.
“These employees shield the integrity of diagnostic specimens and deserve good jobs, not gig work,” the union stated in a publish on X, previously Twitter.
In a information launch issued this week, the Ontario Public Service Workers Union (OPSEU) stated 150 mailroom clerks and couriers throughout the GTA and in Kitchener have been poised to strike on the weekend, with picket traces slated to go up Monday if no deal was reached.
“LifeLabs is a billion-dollar, for-profit firm that will get tens of millions of our public well being care {dollars},” OPSEU President JP Hornick stated in a press release.
“It may completely afford to deal with employees pretty — but even full-time employees are struggling to pay lease as among the lowest paid workers within the firm. How are you supposed to maintain up with the price of dwelling when your lease hike is larger than your wage improve?”
In its personal assertion despatched to , Lifelabs stated the corporate and the union was negotiating a renewal of their collective bargaining settlement and stated administration was dedicated to discovering a deal that works.
“Within the occasion of a strike, LifeLabs will take all attainable actions to attenuate disruption to prospects and healthcare suppliers,” the assertion learn.
“We’ll implement a enterprise continuity plan to make sure that we are able to proceed to offer Ontarians with entry to vital well being care providers. Affected person Providers Centres will stay open, and laboratories will proceed to perform as normal.”
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The union says mail clerks who have been on the verge of hanging deal with all incoming and outgoing deliveries for the corporate, whereas couriers transport blood samples and different checks from hospitals, medical doctors’ workplaces and pharmacies to labs for testing.
Toronto courier Mahmood Alawneh, who can be president of OPSEU Native 5119, stated earlier than the deal was struck that the corporate was eroding working situations.
“The general public depends on us day by day as a part of their care,” Alawneh stated. “We hope that we are able to depend on the general public in flip as we battle for the careers we deserve — good jobs, not gig work.”
