Owen Sound Family Health Team Strike Enters Second Week Over Wages and Funding
A week into a province-wide strike, Owen Sound Family Health Team workers remain off the job; the union says 34,000 patients face disrupted care.
Workers at the Owen Sound Family Health Team (OSFHT) are into a second week on the picket line, part of a province-wide strike by community health and social services workers that the union says has disrupted primary care for more than 34,000 patients across Grey-Bruce.
According to the union, the affected services include palliative care navigation, memory clinics, mental health counselling, prenatal care, cancer screening and chronic disease management.
Members of Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) Local 276 — nurses, dietitians, psychotherapists, pharmacists, occupational therapists and medical administrative staff — walked out Monday, May 25, joining a coordinated action by more than two dozen community agencies across Ontario. As of publication, neither the union nor the employer had reported a settlement.
Local 276 says it is picketing weekdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at three rotating Owen Sound locations: outside MPP Paul Vickers’ constituency office, in front of City Hall, and on the Giche-name-wiikwedong Bridge.
The union’s case
Local 276 says the strike is not a breakdown between workers and OSFHT’s administration, but a dispute with the province. The union argues the employer operates within a funding envelope set by the Ministry of Health that has not kept pace with wages in comparable roles, and points to Bill 124 as the root cause.
That 2019 law capped public-sector wage increases at 1% a year during a period of high inflation. An Ontario court struck it down as unconstitutional in 2022, and the government repealed it in 2024. The union says workers in some sectors — hospitals, schools and the broader public service — subsequently received retroactive wage settlements, while community health and social services workers, including those at family health teams, did not.
The union is asking the community to distinguish this action from the 2018 strike at the Owen Sound Family Health Organization, which it says differs in both cause and character. That earlier dispute, involving roughly 30 OPSEU Local 276 members, began May 22, 2018 over staffing and workplace concerns with the employer. It drew national attention that September after reports of escalating picket-line incidents, including allegations that vehicles struck picketers and that spiked boards were placed to impede cars at the clinic.
The OSFHT walkout is part of OPSEU’s Worth Fighting For campaign, a coordinated bargaining push involving more than two dozen community agencies across Ontario that launched strike action the same week.
Marcelina Salazar, a mental health worker and Local 276 member, said the wage gap has driven colleagues to better-paying jobs elsewhere. Nurse Amorei Sohl said that turnover erodes continuity of care. Nurse Nicole Lauzon said regular nursing follow-ups help catch health problems early, “often preventing complications” and avoiding emergency-room visits.
Salazar called the strike a last resort, describing it as difficult “emotionally, financially, and in the workplace when we return.”
On behalf of Local 276, Sohl urged residents to contact Premier Doug Ford, Vickers, and Deputy Premier and Health Minister Sylvia Jones to press for funding.
A region under pressure
The OSFHT strike is one of several labour actions in Grey-Bruce. Community Living Hanover workers (OPSEU Local 235) have been on strike since May 23.
The walkout also lands amid a primary care gap in the region, where tens of thousands of residents are unattached to a family physician. OSFHT’s nurse navigators — among the workers now on the picket line — help connect unattached patients to care.
The province has committed, through its $2.1-billion Primary Care Action Plan, to connect every Ontarian to a primary care provider by 2029.
What are the ‘Fight Ford’ protests?
The strike coincides with a separate, growing protest movement. “Fight Ford” demonstrations have been held on the last Saturday of each month since February, organized largely through volunteer-run Facebook groups rather than a single organization.
Participation has climbed from roughly a dozen communities in February to 62 locations across Ontario on May 30, the most recent round.
The protests are not tied to one issue. Demonstrators have raised Highway 413, weakened conservation and endangered-species protections, changes to Freedom of Information rules that exempt the premier and cabinet, cuts to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP), health-care privatization and affordability.
Grey-Bruce has featured in the movement. In March, more than 100 students from Owen Sound District Secondary School, St. Mary’s High School and St. Dominic Savio walked out of class to protest OSAP changes at Vickers’ office, and a local demonstration was planned outside his office as part of the May 30 actions.
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