Concerns about the impact of layoffs at a time of major blood supply shortages
Ottawa (31 Oct. 2008) – Canadian Blood Services (CBS) may face an uphill climb in restoring the national blood supply due to aggressive layoffs, say union representatives of CBS workers across Canada.
Some 35 representatives of the public sector unions representing workers employed with Canadian Blood Services across Canada met Oct. 26-28 in Ottawa to discuss issues that impact both Canadian blood donors and recipients and CBS employees.
The meeting was co-hosted by the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) and its Ontario component, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU/NUPGE), which represents all CBS non-nursing unionized workers in the province.
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| Canadian Blood Services representatives gather in Ottawa |
“This is the second national meeting of CBS unions,” said Sean Allen, president of OPSEU/NUPGE Local 477. “These meetings are important opportunities to share valuable information and develop common strategies to deal with bargaining, employer policies and union/employer relationships.”
Some of the key discussions centered on:
- the impact of layoffs on the blood donor system;
- the current bargaining climate and negotiations with CBS;
- grievances and arbitrations;
- staff shortages and workload issues, and
- CBS re-structuring and the impact on donors and the future of the blood supply.
Most of the union representatives across Canada expressed frustration with lengthy delays in bargaining and CBS demands for significant concessions.
CBS lab technologists in Ontario are heading to the conciliation table with an 84 per cent strike mandate after 13 days of bargaining. Many of the OPSEU locals demands sought to address recruitment and retention issues such as increasing the guaranteed hours of work for part-time employees, improvements to premiums, benefits and wages, and protection against job loss resulting from contracting out and the use of volunteers.
The exception was Calgary (CUPE Local 1846), which achieved a collective agreement after 11 bargaining days.
The CBS re-organization and its ‘Optimization Project’ have resulted in layoffs across Canada. The next big hit will be taken by OPSEU – 50 full-time equivalents (FTEs) are to be eliminated with the opening of the big-box blood super centre in Ontario.
CBS maintains that it is trying to work smarter with less staff by such initiatives as standardized operating procedures and job descriptions.
“We fear that the Optimization Project will severely impact donor flow and donor hours. We anticipate more layoffs and are quite concerned about the safety of the blood supply,” says Kim Storebo, president of CUPE Local 1846 in Calgary.
“We see CBS maximizing the scope of work performed within each job description to justify staff shortages,” adds Dawn Adamson, coordinator of Member Services for the Health Sciences Association of BC (HSABC/NUPGE). “This is a big issue for us.”
When CBS replaced Red Cross, their first priority was safety of the blood supply – not cost cutting. Contracting out and threats of privatization sparked a lively debate at the meeting on the continued safety of the blood supply.
“We don’t want to scare the donors away because we need them, but CBS has to be held accountable for this -- nobody is doing that right now,” says Ron Stockton, business agent for Nova Scotia Union of Public Employees. The group formed a sub-committee to gather information on safety breaches and to develop a proposal to address these issues.
Recognizing the need to continue working together through joint communication and discussions, CUPE Locals in New Brunswick volunteered to host the next gathering of CBS Unions in Spring 2010.
Union jurisdiction for CBS workers across Canada is shared by four public sector unions. NUPGE componens represent all non-nursing unionized CBS workers in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario and Manitoba. CUPE locals represent all non-nursing employees in New Brunswick and SEIU represents the same workers in Saskatchewan. Both NUPGE components and CUPE locals both represent bargaining units of CBS workers in B.C and Alberta. NUPGE’s component, the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees’ Union (NSGEU/NUPGE), as well as the small independent union, the Nova Scotia Union of Public Employees (NSUPE), represent CBS workers in that province. NSUPE also represents a newly organized bargaining unit of 11 members in P.E.I. - NUPGE
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