LifeLabs workers are skilled professionals who play a key role in our province’s healthcare system. Responsible for the majority of outpatient lab work done across B.C., they help thousands of us in British Columbia get the vital health testing and data we need. 

Behind the scenes, they are struggling with low wages and poor working conditions. Since March 2024, workers have been trying to change this by negotiating a new contract, but LifeLabs won’t come to the table with a reasonable offer. In fact, from B.C. to Ontario, LifeLabs has a track record of fighting its workers when it comes to negotiating fair contracts. 

Then, in the middle of bargaining last August, LifeLabs was taken over by Quest Diagnostics, a billion-dollar U.S. healthcare giant. (Read more and take action here.) 

After buying LifeLabs for $1.35 billion, Quest said their goal was to strengthen services and improve care and outcomes for Canadians. Despite these statements, the company is still offering insufficient wages, minimal increases to benefits, offering no measures to deal with consistently unmanageable workloads and overtime, and they’re even trying to claw back sick pay. 

Workers and those that depend on LifeLabs’ services deserve better. Not just because it’s the right thing to do, but also because we pay a lot of money – $300 million a year – for access to the lab testing services we all need to take care of our health. Workers are asking LifeLabs to put fewer of our public health dollars into padding CEO profits – in Canada and now in the U.S. – and more into the well-being of workers and patients. 

The contract LifeLabs workers end up getting with the new owner will tell us a lot about the quality of services we can expect in the next few years. If workers are paid fairly, have the benefits they need, and don’t have to worry about chronic understaffing, that means LifeLabs will be able to keep up with demand and provide the kind of accurate, reliable services we all expect. 

LifeLabs has always been a private for-profit company, but with Quest at the wheel, B.C. workers are now up against a multi-national American giant. They need everyone’s support as they continue fighting to negotiate a new contract that values and respects workers – and all of us that depend on LifeLabs’ services.