Manitoba Labour Board orders striking Dynacare lab employees back to work

Hundreds of Dynacare workers are being ordered back to work by the Manitoba Labour Board, their union says.

The Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals said in a statement late Tuesday afternoon the 350 workers will have to return to their jobs Wednesday, after a decision delivered by the labour board on the same day lab technicians and technologists at the private company went on strike.

“That’s not to say that those 350 laboratory technicians and technologists aren’t incredibly angry. They are very angry with this government for ordering them back to work and trampling on their right to strike,” union president Jason Linklater told CBC’s Up to Speed host Faith Fundal in an interview shortly after the statement was issued.

A Tuesday hearing before the labour board considered an application filed by Manitoba Labour Minister Malaya Marcelino, asking for an interim order for the full resumption of services while the independent body determines whether Dynacare workers are providing an essential service.

“The government of Manitoba backed a private, American-owned company that is exploiting front-line health-care professionals, instead of supporting those severely underpaid workers,” Linklater said in the union’s statement.

The decision represents “a profound erosion of trust” in Manitoba’s NDP government, but the union will follow the order while exploring options to address what he called “government interference,” he said.

Dynacare, meanwhile, said in a statement that it welcomes the decision to suspend the strike, which means its employees will be back on the job and its labs will resume normal operations at all locations as of Wednesday morning.

“We are grateful the labour board acted quickly to protect patient access to care, and we look forward to welcoming our team back,” the company’s emailed statement said.

It acknowledged “a stressful period for our team,” and said employees will have Dynacare’s “full support as they return to providing health-care services to Manitobans.”

‘Immediate risks’: labour minister lawyer

The lab technicians and technologists hit the picket line earlier Tuesday morning following an impasse in contract negotiations with the company, resulting in some delays to diagnostic testing in the province.

The province argued Tuesday a return-to-work order was necessary to prevent impacts which could not be addressed after the fact should the strike continue.

“The risks are immediate, they’re widespread and irreversible,” Keith LaBossiere, counsel for the labour minister, said at the hearing.

LaBossiere said the strike would result in delays to prenatal and cancer screenings, patients on anti-psychotic medication being left without the required monitoring, and impacts to mobile collection services that help prevent infectious diseases.

Dynacare workers perform about 40 per cent of all lab testing in Manitoba, including about half of phlebotomies (blood drawing for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes) and two-thirds of cytologies (microscopic examinations for diagnostic purposes), LaBossiere told the hearing.

The stats were drawn from affidavits submitted by Dynacare and provincial health-care leadership, with the company saying it expects a weekly backlog of 34,000 patients if services weren’t maintained.

Dynacare identified an average of 15 critical results from routine testing each day in Manitoba, the company’s chief medical and scientific officer, Jenisa Naidoo, said in the documents.

“It’s clear Manitobans are not safe or free from significant consequences,” LaBossiere said, calling the impacts of a continuing strike “catastrophic.”

He suggested redirecting thousands of patients would have an impact on already long wait times for health care, among other consequences.

Union questions timing

Dynacare staff have been without a collective agreement since March 31. That same month, the union and the company agreed an essential services agreement wasn’t necessary.

During Tuesday’s hearing, the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals argued none of the underlying circumstances had changed since then.

Union lawyer Jake Giesbrecht said the union had engaged the government before and after that determination.

“This has been sitting for months, for six months, and then all of the sudden at the last minute … the minister decides this is ‘catastrophic,'” Giesbrecht said during the hearing.

“If it were true that this was urgent and critical and catastrophic, why, oh why, would the government take six months to take action on that?”

Dynacare counsel Benjamin Hecht said in a remote appearance the company would not have signed off on that determination if it had the “overwhelming” evidence the province presented Tuesday, apologizing for that situation.

Giesbrecht argued the question of whether Dynacare workers provide an essential service is a matter to be determined at a later date, saying the province was seeking the “extraordinary” remedy of stopping a legal strike when none of its evidence showed it was necessary.

“This is all conjecture,” he said, pointing to Shared Health’s own public-facing communications saying Manitobans might experience a delay only in cases where it’s medically safe, and that there were contingencies in place to minimize disruptions.

Giesbrecht also suggested Dynacare could send tests for processing outside Manitoba as part of contingency plans. He also said the province’s 82 laboratories have the capacity to handle testing.

He argued the province should have provided some justification for only bringing up the essential services matter after Dynacare workers overwhelmingly voted in favour of a strike.

“The onus is on anyone that objects [to the essential worker decision] … to act quickly, because people are relying on that,” he said, adding workers went on strike based on the understanding they were not deemed essential.

LaBossiere said the law does not set a timeline as to when the minister can bring those arguments to the board, and there could be many reasons for a delay, including wanting to wait until all other options had been exhausted.

“Whatever happened, it doesn’t deprive the minister” from making the application, he said.

‘Threw them under the bus’: union

Following the board’s decision, union president Linklater said if the province is willing to take away the right of Dynacare employees to strike, it will do the same to other workers.

“Government had an opportunity to support front-line health-care professionals, but instead they threw them under the bus,” his statement said.

A provincial spokesperson said in a statement the government has a fundamental responsibility to ensure essential health-care services, and that’s why it asked the labour board to review the matter.

The province encourages Dynacare to return to the bargaining table, the statement said.

In its statement following the decision, Dynacare said it remains “committed to reaching a fair and equitable agreement” with the union.

Negotiations for a new deal began in February, but the two parties have been unable to reach a tentative agreement since entering mediation in July. 

Dynacare’s last offer was presented to the union last Friday, which the union says didn’t meaningfully address a wage gap with public-sector laboratory workers.

Lab employees voted 99.7 per cent in favour of strike action, a news release sent last month said.

Dynacare’s Tuesday statement said the company has “put multiple strong offers on the table,” and has proposed binding arbitration.