Paramedic Strike Cancels Security Training Exercise
Gold security exercise foiled by paramedics
By BOB MACKIN, 24 HOURS, November 6, 2009
http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/News/local/2009/11/05/11648516.html
It was stalemate on Chess Street Thursday morning when angry off-duty paramedics caused postponement of an Olympic security training session.
The two-dozen, yellow-jacketed members of CUPE 873 marched to the Exercise Gold site at the Vancouver Fire and Rescue training academy and Via Rail yard. Ambulance Paramedics of B.C. picket captain Mike Binns said firefighters agreed not to cross onto Via property. The pickets dispersed after Binns said Via applied for a court injunction.
The event was supposed to simulate a radiological isotopes scare on a train. Public Safety Canada officials canceled media observation and firefighters scrambled to place a tarp on a fence to block cameras.
“VANOC has to pay attention to what’s going on here,” Binns said. “They’re the ones now running the government.”
VANOC medical director Dr. Mike Wilkinson’s Sept. 14 memo to BCAS chief Lee Doney said “the Games may not proceed” without full emergency services. The Liberal government is ordering paramedics to return to full service with a one-year deal and 3% pay hike retroactive to April 1.
“I cannot tell you how disappointed I am and how disappointed the BCAS is today,” said BCAS’ 2010 Games coordinator Bob Alexander.
Asked whether BCAS has an operational plan for the Games, Alexander said “I’m here to talk about the current strike situation, not the ongoing planning process.”
Here also is a press releasee on an earlier strike action by the paramedics:
NEWS RELEASE - November 2, 2009
B.C. citizens take back seat to elite
ALERT: Striking Ambulance Paramedics of BC, CUPE 873, will set up a legal picket line this morning (Monday, Nov. 2) outside the Olympic Sliding Centre in Whistler, B.C.
WHISTLER – B.C.’s 3,500 striking ambulance paramedics say elite Olympics trials are getting priority over emergency services for B.C. residents.
The Ambulance Paramedics of BC, CUPE 873, say many B.C. communities have been left without any ambulances while the BC Ambulance Service has dedicated ambulances and paramedics to the Whistler Sliding Centre for three weeks of practice for visiting Olympic athletes.
The paramedics have set up periodic picket lines outside the Sliding Centre to inform the public. They stress that the government’s first priority should be providing ambulance services for B.C. communities.
“That so many ambulance resources are being provided for these Olympics trials at a time when the public goes without illustrates the provincial government’s skewed priorities for our ambulance system. We have been saying for the last four years that the system is in critical condition,” said CUPE 873 local president John Strohmaier.
CUPE 873 members point out that a B.C. Labour Relations Board order says they must staff Olympics trials, including the current Sliding Centre trials for luge, bobsleigh and skeleton. Strohmaier says the province has been willing to pay expenses and travel time for paramedics at the Olympics trials - something they have not been willing to provide for B.C. paramedics serving the public.
The trials call for two ambulances – the same as the number allotted for the entire Whistler village. The paramedics say that as many as 20 B.C. communities are left with no ambulances on any given day.
“We believe that if the government is serious about providing the best ambulance service possible it should focus on all our citizens, not just elite athletes.” The paramedics have been on strike since April 1 for better response times, wages, equipment and staffing levels.