By Rick Bell
Calgary Sun
Copyright 2007 Sun Media Corporation
All Rights Reserved
CALGARY, AB. — Strike but no strike.
The moves on the chess board will be made but there is no reason for fear or loathing. Our ambulances will not disappear from Calgary streets. Citizens will not face some half-baked contingency plan where city staff with basic ambulance operation and first-aid training try to make Emergency Medical Services work.
Such is the commitment of Iris (Not An Idiot) Evans, the province’s minister responsible for labour, who is also a Calgary-trained nurse and former Alberta Health head honcho.
Yes, our world-class paramedics voted 354 to 4 this week for a strike and their union execs discuss today when to serve a three-day notice of a walkout.
Yes, the paramedics will give the 72-hour notice, probably sometime early next week. But the province, as the clock ticks down the 72 hours, is expected to declare an emergency exists and send the city and the paramedics to an arbitrator who will impose a deal binding on both sides.
A strike will have been called and paramedics will come close to hitting the bricks but a strike will not actually occur. Paramedics will be sent back to work. Calgary EMS will be treated as an essential service without being an essential service written in law.
“The bottom line now is we’re not going to let Calgarians be put at risk. We can’t have an interruption of service. We’re going to effectively stop any public emergency,” says Iris, who speaks similar sentiments when she meets with the Sun last week during a Stampede visit.
“The process can be put in place and start right away.”
Mayor Bronco insists the city has the bases covered with a backup plan using EMS management in ambulances and other city workers as drivers. “It will not provide the service Calgarians have come to expect,” admits Bronco. No kidding.
The mayor even offers voluntary arbitration, a case of too little, too late.
Iris says she remains “always hopeful” the city and paramedics can somehow come to an 11th-hour handshake, but she’s a realist.
And, also as a realist, Iris is almost certainly not going to use the provincial government’s other option, to send the mess to a mediator who can stall the strike but only offer a suggested settlement either side can punt.
In this dispute, the two sides are too far apart. Mediation is a waste of time.
The city offers 12% over three years, paramedics want 18% plus an adjustment of the pay grid adding up to a total 30% hike over three years.
Even the United Nations can’t bridge that kind of gulf.
Grumblers may not like these numbers, but EMS staff do a stand-up job, their skills are much in demand and there is already a shortage of trained people here.
And, in case you didn’t notice, the cost of living is booming and the tide of this boom isn’t lifting all boats equally. The show-and-tell set can’t mouth about how much money they’re making and then expect those without a seat on the gravy train to not want a slurp of the sauce.
Besides, the strike vote shows how united the paramedics are in their position.
The membership is very unhappy, frustrated over their dough, especially when compared to some other city workers, and peeved about short staffing where some paramedics are on the job upwards to 60 hours a week.
The move of Iris to grab the gong and end the show is not going to create too many sobs over at the paramedics union HQ. “They’ll do what they do and we’ll follow,” says Bruce Robb, president of the paramedics union, a man who has been through over a year of back-and-forth blither and blather with the city and still has somehow managed to stay on an even keel.
Bruce says they’ve tried everything to get a deal. Going to a third party for a binding agreement is a gamble but the odds at this table aren’t bad.
“Shouldn’t they have been bargaining rather than building a contingency plan providing half the service or a quarter of the service?” asks Bruce. “We’ve tried. At some point the employer has to take responsibility. Every once in awhile you have to re-right the balance. This is the day.”
There is a day to vote for a strike, a day to notify the city and the public of a strike but not a day to go on strike.
I guess our paramedics provide us too valuable of service to risk a game of chicken.
Hope their value will now be acknowledged.