I feel like somebody needs to propose a compromise. Before this strike started the workers voted 74% against a contract that their bargaining team had brought to them at the request of a Ministry of Labour conciliator as an alternative to a strike. They wanted a pay grid and that wasn't offered. I understand why they voted against it then but I think they'd accept it now.
The Family Health team is not running as efficiently as it was before, wait times are longer, people aren't getting phone messages returned and there's no way the doctors are comfortable getting patients from the waiting area when they have the stress of keeping people alive to deal with. They want the nurses and support staff back I believe. They also don't have a contract of their own, they have huge overhead and I don't think a family doctor makes as much as the union does.
My family doctor's nurse is amazing and my wife's nurse was with us the entire time she was pregnant; she took care of us and she consoled us when we were worried. Our daughter is 5 now and she loves her nurse, we love our nurse. There is no way these local sweet nurses and support staff are happy with their union's "militant" (Smokey Thomas' word not mine) actions during this strike. In fact some of them aren't collecting strike pay anymore so that they don't have to picket, and from what I understand a couple of them crossed the picket line and now their faces are on signs and they're being called scabs.
It seems like whatever side you take in this conflict someone hates you. It's turned into the Union VS the people of Owen Sound not the union vs the doctors. If you don't believe that go down to the picket line and watch for a bit.
I'm asking the Family Health Team to offer that original contract again and to hire the staff that quit back and I'm asking the staff to accept the deal: there will be other contracts and you'll have stronger negotiating power once the doctors have a new Provincial deal.
Let's move on please.
David Crane
