Ontario's health minister asks OMA: do you want to be a union?

Ontario's health minister is asking the province'sdoctors if binding arbitration is so important that they are willing
to form a public-sector union and disclose their salaries.

• ANALYSIS |After Ontario doctors reject province's fee deal, what's next?

• Doctors vote not to accept Ontario's proposed fee agreement

The Ontario Medical Association has asked for it as a conditionof returning to negotiations on a new fee agreement for doctors.

Doctors voted down a tentative deal, which would have raised thephysician services budget by 2.5 per cent a year, to $12.9 billionby 2020, following a concerted campaign from a group calling itselfthe Coalition of Ontario Doctors.

One of the group's concerns was that the deal didn't includebinding arbitration, with the government and OMA instead agreeing toallow a court challenge on it to continue.

But with the OMA now saying it wants binding arbitration in placebefore talks resume, Health Minister Eric Hoskins has sent OMApresident Dr. Virginia Walley a charged letter.

• Read the letter here

"Let me assure you, if the OMA's insistence that it be awardedthe right of binding arbitration that we have provided to otherpublic sector unions is so great that it is willing to bere-constituted formally as a union and accept all the obligationsthat other public sector unions have adopted -- including withdrawingobjections to salary disclosure that all other government unions aresubject to and relinquishing the rights of members to incorporateindividually -- the government would be open to that discussion,"Hoskins wrote.

Doctors without compensation deal for 2 years

Hundreds of doctors bill OHIP more than $1 million per year, butother than doctors at hospitals, their salaries are not included inthe annual list of public-sector workers making over $100,000.

The average Ontario doctor bills $360,000 a year, but must paystaff and any office expenses out of that amount. Media outlets havelaunched an appeal to get more information on doctors' billingsafter requests through freedom of information were rejected.

Hoskins writes that the government is prepared to let the OMAsort out its internal issues, but Ontario doctors have already beenwithout a compensation agreement for two years. Last year thegovernment moved to unilaterally impose some cuts in their fees andtensions have run high.

Many doctors, including the outspoken group Concerned OntarioDoctors, expressed shock when a deal was reached last month sincethey were unaware talks had even resumed.

But they were also unhappy with the terms of the deal and tookthe OMA negotiating team to task.

Walley said last week that the OMA had shut down its negotiationscommittees, severed ties with its negotiations adviser andterminated its relationship with the public relations firmNavigator.