For the past seven or eight weeks, I drive past a group of people set up at the corner of Paris Street and St. Anne’s Road with their banners and their signs.
These are the locked-out workers of CarePartners, a for-profit home care business. Instead of negotiating with their workers, CarePartners has hired replacements to do their jobs. Why would CarePartners feel the need to negotiate when our labour laws make it so easy for them to ignore their own workers?
Of course it is our tax dollars that are supporting this sorry mess, ensuring that CareParners turns a profit at the expense of their workers and their clients, who happen to be our most vulnerable citizens.
Shame on all of us for letting this happen. We need to toughen up our labour laws so they actually protect workers, and we need to stop privatizing health-care services.
In the meantime, CarePartners needs to return to the bargaining table and negotiate with their workers in good faith. This has been going on too long.
Laurie McGauley
Sudbury