The labour dispute between between Family Living Renfrew County South and OPSEU Local 472 has been noticeable to local residents primarily due to the picket lines and the visibility walks implemented by the union. It’s hard to ignore the flags, the chants, and the blaring horns of supportive motorists passing by.
Nobody, I’d venture, is in the mood to be doing any happy honking at the people exclusively responsible for all of this on the management side, particularly the executive director and her enabling Board of Directors.
People and passers-by see strikers. They’ve seen those strikers for five weeks already, with a really hot sixth week already two days in. They think that’s a long time. Too long of a time. And they begin to start asking questions. Questions around what the hold-up is, and who might be responsible.
They see strikers on a work action in its sixth week.
And they wonder just what the hell is going on.
What many, and probably most of them don’t know is that these workers have been without a contract since March of 2024, meaning that all this has been percolating for some 50 months prior to the strike action.
This is the work of the Executive Director, Jennifer Lavallee.
It’s an attempt to break a union local, and carries all the hallmarks of a vengeance ploy to punish workers for choosing to join OPSEU some ten years ago in the first place.
There was a reason why workers joined a union at that time, and it had to do with the fact that they were being treated as poorly and disrespectfully as they’re being treated right now.
People like Jennifer and her board hate unions because they run interference on management being able to do whatever they want with their workers, basically exploiting them as they see fit. Unions, after all, are a check on managerial abuse. Simple things like seniority and job security are anathema to Lavallee, and only get in the way of her running her little empire the way she damn-well pleases.
And in an attempt to win her fight against the union, she’s willing to turn a blind-eye to the care, and quality of care, of her clients and their supporting families. In wartime there is often collateral damage, which is kind of a softer word for the fact that innocents often get hurt when the big boys start chucking bombs. And in this case, the innocents are the clients. They are the collateral damage that’s deemed acceptable according to Lavallee’s dysfunctional political calculus.
And she’s absolutely cool with it. And even worse, she’s counting on people to not notice or even not care. Her strategy is heavily dependant upon the flawed assumption that nobody will say boo about it.
And how are these clients doing?
Not so well it seems, not so well at all. And what a lot of people don’t realize is that this demographic has special needs, many of which are not being met and many that are being met in a much-reduced way, implemented by replacement workers, strangers to the clients, some of whom have little facility in English.
This can and does lead to flash-points of crisis, where the need of a client becomes so acute, so severe, that other agencies are called upon to be involved in emergency situations. Hospitals, paramedics, and other community support organizations are the option for these families in a time of crisis, and this puts additional pressure on agencies and organizations already straining under the extraordinary weight of their own responsibilities. Now they’re being called upon to clean up Jennifer’s mess, a mess she didn’t make by accident, but one deliberately provoked as a punishment strategy directed at the workers.
And she’s more than willing to sit back and watch her clients suffer.
It’s so bad that Renfrew Town Council has passed a motion in an attempt to compel both sides to begin talking at the bargaining table, or at least accept mediation. The letter of the motion was sent to the Ministry of Children, Community, and Social Services. I can’t speculate exactly how the ministry will receive the letter, but I can tell you that I suspect mightily they’ll do absolutely squat for the simple reason that this is as much their game plan as it is Jennifer’s. It’s entirely possible she is merely a lackey of the Ford government.
She appears to be more than willing to assist the Tory government agenda of breaking down the power of public-sector unions. As such, she has chosen to cross the line as a de-facto agent of the so-called Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.
That’s not to say the Tories hate unions. They just like private-sector unions, like auto workers, people they don’t have to pay wages to. But their own employees? They’d be content if they could just fire them all and start fresh with their own people, people that they could then in turn pay less and provide fewer benefits to, or even better, perhaps no benefits at all.
We live in an age where billionaires control everything to their own benefit, and sneer down on the rest of us. It’s one of the reasons our middle class is in danger of being eliminated.
Somewhere along the line, Jennifer Lavallee must have fantasized about being a billionaire, because she behaves in a manner consistent with those types of societal louts. But I assume Jennifer pays her taxes, which is proof right there that she’s no billionaire.
But in this case, in Jennifer’s case, she appears to be taking on the role of a minor despot, observable more in the hardship and suffering that she’s willing to inflict upon her very own clients, the very raison-d’etre for her own management existence. These people are her reason for being here, to administer to and provide for the needs of a vulnerable client population. Her client population.
She, no doubt, thinks she’s brilliant, but she’s not.
She has, in fact, fallen flat on her face, and she’s dragging down that hapless Board of Directors with her.
People are beginning to notice and they’re beginning to talk and they’re starting to get frustrated, with the frustration leading to anger.
People are getting mad, Jennifer, and they want action.
I’m not talking OPSEU people, although they’re well and truly pissed, and legitimately so. I’m referring to people not affiliated in any way with the union, other members of the community, people who just want to see everyone get a fair shake from society. And people who get upset when they hear of the impact this situation has had on the broader community. Things that cost additional taxpayer dollars and put additional and unnecessary pressure on already strained services..
They begin to cast about looking for the sticking point, the thing that’s preventing all this from being resolved in a responsible way. And more and more their gaze lands upon the executive director and, by extension, the Board of Enablers.
Many wonder how such a mean-spirited-approach can be even contemplated let alone implemented. And it brings me back to the author of all this, unless of course she is merely doing the governments bidding. If the latter were to be true, all she’d have to do is say that it’s just that, that her hands are tied, and that would take a lot of wind out of the sails powering all this criticism.
Don’t hold your breath.
Sometimes, the victims of bullies turn out to be bullies themselves later in life. If all this is a manifestation of her being bullied at school years ago, then I have one question for the people who were tormenting her.
“Why the hell did you stop?”
Nobody likes a bully. And that’s what’s happening here plain and simple.
It appears it will fall to the rest of us to do something about it.,
NEWSMAGRENFREW 