OPSEU/SEFPO is growing! Workers are getting organized – and this week, we’re thrilled to share welcome news about the newest members joining OPSEU/SEFPO, now 200,000 strong across the public service.
1041 LifeLabs workers – including medical laboratory technologists, cytotechnologists, pathologists assistants, medical laboratory technicians and medical laboratory assistants – are newly union certified after casting the majority of ballots in favour of joining OPSEU/SEFPO. Our newest members form one unified bargaining unit across four sites – the Kennedy Laboratory (KL) in Mississauga, and the International Reference Laboratory (IRL), Voyager Office, and Genetic Laboratory in Toronto.
“Congratulations – I am so proud to welcome you to our union. Your resolve and collective efforts to stand together and take your power back are nothing short of inspiring,” said OPSEU/SEFPO President JP Hornick. “We can’t wait to organize, fight and win with you for the dignified working conditions you deserve.”
LifeLabs is a private, for-profit provider acquired by the American-based Quest Diagnostic for $1.35 billion in 2024. Since LifeLabs workers in Ontario started joining OPSEU/SEFPO, the company has adopted a number of aggressive union-busting tactics to intimidate and prevent other workers from exercising their Constitutional rights, including prohibiting workers from going to the bathroom together and forming “SWAT Teams” to stamp out organizing efforts.
Yet those efforts have not dissuaded LifeLabs workers across Ontario from joining the rising tide, year after year, and organizing their workplace.
“At a time when privatization is decimating our province and for-profit health care providers make money hand over first at our expense, the best thing you can do is join a union,” said Brent MacPherson, Chair of the Canadian Blood Services and Diagnostics Sector (Sector 19). “It’s how we build power of our own, against all odds, to ensure that companies like LifeLabs put the safety and dignity of you and your clients before a profit margin.”