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More than 100 health-care workers could hit picket lines Friday

THUNDER BAY -- More than 100 employees with the North West Community Care Access Centre could be on the picket line Friday morning.

THUNDER BAY -- More than 100 employees with the North West Community Care Access Centre could be on the picket line Friday morning.

Ontario Nurses Association president Linda Haslam-Stroud said the 125 group coordinators and allied health professionals in the region are the lowest-paid in the province.

After taking a wage freeze in the last collective agreement, which expired March 31, 2014, the group just wants to see normal increases, something the employer hasn't agreed with.

"They are looking at us taking another wage freeze for the first year of the collective agreement," Haslam-Stroud said. 

That offer doesn't respect the work her members do Haslam-Stroud said. 

Representing 60,000 people in the province, she said ONA has been seeing increases either through collective agreements or arbitration.

If the strike vote goes as she expects Thursday evening, Haslam-Stroud said the workers will be on the picket line Friday morning.

That will mean no one will be there to help patients transition out of the hospital, seniors won't have assistance getting into long-term care homes or navigating the health system.

"We're really hoping that this employer sees the light of day," she said.





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