THUNDER BAY – Paramedics at Superior North EMS have overwhelmingly voted in favour of strike action.
According to Rob Moquin, unit chair for Local 39-11 City Paramedics, 99 per cent of paramedics cast a ballot supporting walking off the job if a deal cannot be reached with the City of Thunder Bay.
“We’ve been without a contract coming for about a year,” Moquin said in an interview with CKPR Radio.
“We did ask to defer the contract prior to COVID coming through into the community.”
Moquin said they began meetings with the city in December.
“We just want to make it clear we’re not looking to use the media as vehicle for bargaining. We respect the bargaining process. We want to keep all bargaining at the table,” Moquin said.
“We’re not here to sling mud ... but we think it’s important that our stakeholders, the people of Thunder Bay, should be aware that upcoming in the near future, there could be a change in delivery of the ambulance service.”
Moquin said paramedics are not considered an essential service, but he assured the public that once they sign an essential services agreement with the city, only a certain number of ambulances will be in service at any given time throughout the course of the day.
“It also limits the amount of staff that are available to work on the ambulance, and that’s agreed upon in the ESA,” Moquin said.
“The strike could last as long as any other strike in any other industry or service. And we could be legislated back to work sooner than later. But there would be a significant decrease of ambulances responding to emergencies in the city.”
The city would not be without ambulances to respond to emergencies at any time.
“And we’re encouraging people that if they do feel they need an ambulance to call 911. An ambulance will come.”
Non-urgent transfers, however, may not be serviced, or they may be deferred, depending on how busy paramedics already are.
Moquin said they were in talks on Wednesday and Thursday and were planning to file a no board report at some point this week.
“It does put us in a legal strike position within the next 18 days, once we have secured the ESA.”
