FOG BLOG NB CUPE STRIKE LOG: HIGGS LEAVES BARGAINING TABLE AND ORDERS HEALTH WORKERS BACK:

N.B. premier issues back-to-work order for CUPE health-care workers.......New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs has ordered CUPE health-care workers in the province to return to work, under the province’s mandatory emergency order.

“We are issuing a mandatory order and ordering health-care workers back to work. This is not a step we take lightly,” said Higgs during a news update on Friday afternoon. “The pandemic, coupled with the strike has put too much pressure on our hospitals, and the dedicated staff who are trying to keep them going. Immediate action has to be taken to ensure that we are able to keep New Brunswickers safe.”

The emergency order forces striking workers in the health-care sector to return to work by Friday at midnight.The mandatory order does not impact other CUPE workers outside of health care.

“We’re not questioning the validity of the legal strike. We are acting, in a pandemic, under an emergency order, to deal directly with the health and safety of all New Brunswickers and we need to recognize the system urgently needs to be addressed,” said Higgs.

During Friday’s update, representatives from both Horizon Health and Vitalité Health spoke about the issues facing health-care facilities in the province.

“We were asked to assess this daily and let the government know when we were broken,” said Dr. John Dornan, interim CEO of Horizon Health. “We are broken to the point where people’s health are in jeopardy. We need help. We need essential workers to come in.”

According to Dornan, over 240 surgeries and over 10,000 tests and procedures have been cancelled in Horizon Health facilities, and 13 cases were waiting for emergency surgery on Thursday alone.

“We do not have a buffer of employees. When there is a strike, and we move down to essential employees, we start to see a build-up in the surgeries we don’t do. We start to see an increase in the number of people who wait for vaccinations and testing in our community. We start to see a back-up of garbage, a back-up of dirty trays, and it grows,” said Dornan.