December 8, 2006
Enough is Enough! MDS workers need CEP representation

(London, Ontario)  - Employees of MDS Diagnostic Services with the assistance of CEP Organizers have launched an organizing drive that is quickly expanding to more than 100 Patient Service Centres and Laboratories in Ontario. “ When we began organizing in our workplace in London, four weeks ago, we had no idea of the extent that MDS employees in other cities and towns across Ontario are experiencing the same unfair conditions at work as we are, says Cytology employee Lisa Carrothers. “But news of our organizing campaign spread like wildfire through our region and has now gone across Ontario.”

MDS Diagnostic Services is Canada’s largest provider of laboratory services, with more than 2,900 employees and annual revenue of $335 million. The company provides more than 50 million diagnostic tests to more than 10 million patients and nearly 20,000 physicians in Canada each year.
Borealis Infrastructure Management Inc. (on behalf of OMERS Pension Fund), has recently agreed to purchase MDS Diagnostic Services, the Canadian laboratory services arm of MDS Inc., in a $1.325 billion transaction.

“Whenever a doctor in Ontario sends you to a private walk-in patient service centre for a blood test, it is very likely an MDS employee who is drawing your blood sample,” says MDS London Courier Kim Parsons. “You are using the services of a group of people who receive much lower wages than their counterparts doing the same work in public sector workplaces such as hospitals.”

“MDS employees tell us that they feel that the $1.325 billion windfall to the present shareholders and top management has come at the expense of the company’s front-line workers in the Patient Service Centres and Laboratories who have endured years of low pay, arbitrary treatment and unfair workloads,” adds Vic Morden, CEP Organizer.

“Enough is enough!” says Treena Randall, also an employee in the Cytology Lab in London. “MDS can afford to treat its employees better.”

MDS workers across Canada were furious last year when they learned that while they were enduring job cuts and reduced hours in a company-wide restructuring, ex-CEO John Rogers was handed an $11.2 million severance package.

MDS 2005 Management Proxy Circular distributed in January 2006 confirm that Rogers “golden handshake” included a $9.3 million pension, a special bonus of $1.5 million plus additional payouts totaling more than $400,000. “Mr. Rogers and all of the present top managers of MDS have negotiated lucrative ‘employment contracts’ that include wages, benefits, pension and severance provisions,” says CEP Organizer Danny McBride. “The hard-working employees of MDS deserve their own employment contract…a union collective agreement, to protect their interests and the interests of their families.”

“The need to form a union in our workplace was really brought home to us when we learned that Mr. Rogers was given that huge pension settlement. Many of us can’t even dream of retiring on the wages we earn. The ironic thing about MDS being sold to OMERS is that now the hard work we have all put into making MDS such a successful company will benefit OMERS pensioners. Good for them but aren’t we entitled to our fair share?” says Theresa Hannah, a Customer Service Representative at the London Laboratory. “ That’s why we invited CEP to help us to form a union at MDS Diagnostic Services!”