By Sarah Stone

POLL: Tears shed over North Sask. Laundry closure

May 30, 2013 | 4:53 PM

Prince Albert workers are in tears over a recent decision that will affect their financial well-being.

On Wednesday employees of North Sask. Laundry & Support Services Ltd. were informed by 3sHealth (Health Shared Services Saskatchewan) and the province that all the laundry in Saskatchewan’s health care system will be shipped to Regina to be cleaned by the private Alberta company, K-Bro. This will make their location in Prince Albert superfluous.

“There were a lot of tears yesterday. People rely on the jobs, so there were a lot of tears. There wasn’t much talking yesterday,” said Local CUPE 3736 president Anita Labossiere trying to hold back tears.

“[I’m] feeling very overwhelmed for my staff members and co-workers, [I’m] a little bit angry. I think that it’s wrong to privatize a public need. I mean public services should remain public they shouldn’t be put out to be made for profit.”

Labossiere is not only the local union president, but a shipper at North Sask. Laundry and will see the direct impact of the province’s decision to pass the operation onto an out-of-province company.

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The province is expected to save $93 million over 10 years, but Labossiere said you can’t just “measure profit in dollars and cents”.

“What about the human costs and the impact on the workers and the families and their communities. This will be another blow to rural Saskatchewan; hundreds of jobs will be lost,” she said, adding there will be 38 full-time and 40 casual positions lost at North Sask. Laundry alone.

She said job losses aren’t the only negative impact, explaining the change will have environmental impacts with the increased travel time as well as unreliability if road conditions are bad.

So far, no one at the company has been approached with alternate job offers or plans, but 3sHealth CEO Andrew Will said they will be trying to work with the laundry services to mitigate job losses.

Will explained some Saskatchewan companies were reviewed to provide the service, but K-Bro was chosen because of their 60-year history across Canada that will help improve quality and infection control.

“In the solution that we’re bringing forward, K-Bro will build the plant in Regina as well as they will open distribution centres in both of Saskatoon and Prince Albert, but those will be basically K-Bro developed, owned and operated distribution centres,” Will said.

Bonnie O’Grady, chair of the North Sask. Laundry board of directors said they understand the decision to transfer all laundry to central location, but she is concerned about the job losses.

“That has been the struggle in these decisions all along. Now it impacts different sites differently. Some of the existing laundry providers in the province are RHA owned and operated and CUPE locals there are those within the RHA,” O’Grady said. “So there is more opportunity in some sites for movement and absorption into the system.”

Unfortunately, places like North Sask. Laundry is not part of the same union and absorption won’t be as easy, so they will try and help the employees find other employments prospects.

“We hope that along the way we can provide all the support we can in assisting them either in retraining for other job opportunities or helping them research what opportunities there are in preparing for North Sask. Laundry,” she said, adding the decision has been “immense struggle, but explains at RHAs they have to look at the whole health system as a province.”

The exact location of K-Bro’s facility in Regina hasn’t been decided yet, but it plans to be up and running in two years.

North Sask. Laundry cleans scrubs, OR linens, beddings, towels and other items for the health region.

sstone@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahstone84