To the editor:
In 1974, employees working at the Port Arthur Clinic decided that they deserved fair compensation and working conditions and realized that by joining together as a union they would be able to express to their employer, the doctors who own the clinic, their desire to improve their lot in life.
The doctors fought this move and the staff went out on strike for months and in the end the doctors were able to destroy the workers morale and they abandoned their quest for a Union.
The doctors have for some reason been able to keep their employees even though they have been under paid and have for the most part been working in part time and casual work positions. These employees have shown their dedication to these doctors by staying with the Clinic for years, some for over 30 years.
A number of years ago the doctors turned over day to day operation of the Health Centre to a management team. This management team under the leadership of one John Morello and I assume with the approval of the doctors is now trying to again destroy the union by forcing these dedicated workers to strike for a wage that would still leave them below the low-income level as established by the provincial government.
These workers represent the working poor and are suffering at the hands of professional people who have sworn a Hippocratic Oath that includes the phrase “I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm”.
It is time for these purveyors of health care and believers in the Hippocratic Oath to follow through on their obligations to their fellow human beings and provide proper employment opportunities and payment to those human beings that have spent all those years serving them.
It is time for the doctors to do the proper thing and instruct their management team to meet with the employees and settle this strike.
Jules Tupker,
Thunder Bay
