LifeLabs workers on strike in Burnaby

On Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025, LifeLabs unionized workers announced the start of a strike throughout BC. In a press release, the British Columbia General Employees’ Union (BCGEU) announced that LifeLabs employees had started the job action after a 72-hour warning. 

“The union served a 72-hour strike notice on Thursday, Feb. 13, after months of negotiations and LifeLabs’ refusal to bring wages and benefits in line with the cost of living, or to address poor working conditions resulting from chronic understaffing,” the union said in a press release. 

The statement also said that LifeLabs workers picketed in front of Burnaby Reference Lab, 3680 Gilmore Way on Feb. 16. 

According to BCGEU president Paul Finch, LifeLabs was recently bought by a US for-profit company, Quest Diagnostics, in August 2024. The company has been attempting to extract as much profit as possible from the labs, often at the expense of the workers and patients. 

“Life Labs was bought out by an American for-profit Fortune-500 company, Quest Diagnostics,” Finch said. “We saw a shift at the table. At that point, our members took a strike vote, so they voted over 98% in favour of job action, with an almost 80% turnout. So it was a very strong strike mandate,” Finch said.

Finch added that the issues the workers face are not new, and predate the sale to Quest Diagnostics.

“We’ve always had issues with the attempts to make marginal profit increases off of eroding workforce needs and patient care. But we’re saying that that accelerated after the purchase of this company by Quest Diagnostics in the fall of 2024,” he said.

Finch said that during the strike, patients needing urgent care can access it, and testing will continue at the centres, albeit at a lower capacity. He added that before the strike, conditions were already unfavourable for employees and patients, with appointments booked weeks in advance on the online system and walk-ins facing long wait times and overworked employees at understaffed centres. This is also true for Burnaby’s branches of LifeLabs. 

“If you have a single person that is off on sick leave, if somebody doesn’t provide notice of their shift far enough in advance,” Finch said. “It creates this incredible tension at the patient care centre, because you all of a sudden have an additional workload that’s incredibly difficult to fulfill. That creates a tremendous amount of stress, not just on the workforce providing these patient services, but also on the patients themselves.”

The workers participating in the job action also have concerns regarding their workplace health and safety standards. 

“Our members at LifeLabs, approximately 1,200, have been in bargaining since March of 2024,” Finch told the Beacon. “We want parity with public sector laboratory technicians and others, proper shift scheduling, and occupational health and safety provisions, and we think that will translate into not just better conditions for the people that deliver these critical services, but also for patients.”

According to the BCGEU, the average wage at LifeLabs is $29.90, slightly above the current living wage in Metro Vancouver at $27.05 an hour. Many workers are paid between 4% and 16% below the industry standard as compared to workers doing similar work in the public sector.

This piece was made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.

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