Striking workers at Clear Medical Imaging will vote on the company's 'final offer' beginning Wednesday afternoon.
The workers are represented by Unifor Local 2458 and is against the membership supporting the company's final offer.
"We're not recommending that they support this final proposal from the company," says local 2458 president Ken Durocher.
Durocher told AM800's Mornings with Mike & Meg, the local met with the membership last Thursday and went over the company's 'final offer' with them.
He says the union believes the company's offer is trying to separate the membership.
"We rejected their last proposal offer," he says. "We didn't bring it back to the membership. The committee felt there is several issues that were still outstanding."
Durocher believes the 'final vote' is a way for the company to force the vote.
"Tomorrow they'll get a proposal from the company which they've already seen from us from when we had a meeting last Thursday, they'll get to vote on that proposal, if they turn it down we will still be on strike," says Durocher. "If it does get approved, that will be their collective agreement and we will proceed from there."
He says if the membership rejects the final offer, the union plans to counter the company's proposal.
"We thought the talks last week were going towards getting a collective agreement and then I want to say blind sided by the company for them to file with the labour board," he says.
Durocher says the membership will begin voting at 2 p.m. and will have until 2 p.m. on Thursday to vote.
He says the results will be known after the vote.
As AM800 news reported last week, Clear Medical Imaging requested the Ontario Ministry of Labour to conduct a final offer vote on the company's latest proposal.
A statement last Wednesday from the company's CEO Mike Reinkober said, "it would provide our employees with the chance to vote directly on the last offer that we provided the union's bargaining committee. This offer included both wage and benefit improvements. If the vote is successful and employees accept our offer, we would resume operations as soon as possible."
130 workers from across 11 locations in Windsor, LaSalle, Tecumseh. Essex and Chatham have been off the job since October 25 to back contract demands.
Wages, benefits, mandatory overtime, job security, and the contracting out of services remain key sticking issues in the labour dispute.
