According to reports on Bayshore Broadcasting and in the Owen Sound Sun Times, a large rally of support for the 30 OPSEU Local 276 members on strike from the Owen Sound Family Health Organization has helped bring the doctors who own the clinic back to the table.
“We welcome a return to the table as quickly as possible in order settle this dispute,” OPSEU First Vice-President / Treasurer Eduardo (Eddy) Almeida told the Owen Sound Sun Times. “The workers resolve in their pursuit of fairness will not be broken.”
“All we’re asking for is that they hold the line in regards to the treatment of their pension plan and that they’re given a fair wage,” Almeida said to Bayshore Broadcasting. “The doctors in there are asking for a 15 per cent increase on wages that are substantially greater than what our members make.”
“I don’t think it’s unfair for our members to ask for a slight wage increase and, again, that they have a pension plan.”
Along with prompting a return to the table, the rally also buoyed the spirits of the striking workers.
“We’re normally such a small group out here trying to make a stand,” said strike captain Tina Roscoe in the Sun-Times.
“And to have all these people come out is just incredible . . . It just shows us that we’re not in this alone, people are here with us. And that’s hard for us to remember some days.”
Read OPSEU’s news release on its solidarity rally.
More detail about pictures about the solidarity rally.