Time to shake up the OMA
Resignation of executives not enough to get Ontario’s doctors back on track
I’m not sure what was more of a shock — the New England Patriots erasing a 25-point deficit and winning the Super Bowl or the announcement the following day that all six members of the Ontario Medical Association’s executive committee were finally prepared to do the right thing and resign following a non-confidence vote at a special council meeting in late January.
While the OMA, as a result of accepting these resignations, does its best imitation of “Who’s on first?” by Abbott and Costello, it might be timely to share my prescription for curing what ails the OMA. I’m a former manager of government relations for the OMA and currently an adviser to Doctors Ontario, a grassroots physicians’ organization.
Here, in no particular order, are my recommendations: • Stop Randing Ontario’s doctors. Call me crazy, but I believe in offering your members the kind of service and results that are truly worth paying for voluntarily. The Rand Formula requires that anyone who works in a unionized shop must pay their dues — even if they choose not to be a member. The law harkens back to a decision in 1946 by Justice Ivan Rand, which formed a part of the arbitration settlement that ended a United Auto Workers’ strike at the Ford plant in Windsor. The concept is pretty basic. If you’re going to be the beneficiary of your union’s efforts at the bargaining table, then you should be willing to pay your fair share of the freight. It was felt by Rand this formula would prevent “freeriders” — those who reap the rewards without paying for them. The OMA, which benefits from its own form of Rand — the Ontario Medical Association Dues Act, which was negotiated by the association in 1991 with the Bob Rae government in lieu of a fee increase for its members — takes in about $50 million annually in government-mandated dues. The OMA doesn’t need government to rescind the OMA Dues Act in order to de-Rand the medical profession. They’d only have to stop sending the government a list of those doctors who haven’t sent in their dues so they can be deducted from their billings like they did for 18 months in the late ‘90s.
• Cut the OMA staff in half and reduce membership dues to $1,000 per member. The OMA is a bloated bureaucracy. They have twice as many employees as they need, which is why the dues are twice as high as they should be.
• Give the entire membership a chance to elect their president. One member, one vote. It’s time to stop the madness of having a small cabal of board members choosing who will lead the OMA every year.
• Hire a pit bull as your negotiator instead of a pussy cat. Craig Bromell or Buzz Hargrove. These are the kinds of people you want sitting across the table from the government’s negotiating team. Not doctors, and not the lame advisers and out-of-their-element staffers you’ve had populating the last several negotiating committees you’ve sent to Queen’s Park.
• Take an aggressive approach in dealing with government. Doctors are the one group that can bring government to its knees. Forget about co-management. Start pushing back and setting the agenda instead of always reacting to theirs.
• Bring in a public relations firm who truly understands politics and health care. Unless you bring in someone who understands that health care is not a box of cereal to be sold to an unsuspecting public, and that doctors aren’t widgets to be moved around like pieces on a chess board, then you’re never going to win the spin wars, my friends.
• Run an advertising campaign that gets real results and not just hits. You have been sucked into believing by those running these PR firms that the most important thing is how many hits your ads are getting on social media. Time to wake up and shake up the public with a killer media campaign. Before the next election.
• Develop a list of creative job actions and don’t be afraid to use them. The number of job actions available for you to implement on behalf of your members is endless. All you need is the courage of your convictions — and, of course, a few convictions.
• Hold a strike vote. It’s a powerful tool to have in your back pocket when sitting at the negotiating table — which, I trust, you aren’t planning to do until government first guarantees doctors binding arbitration.
• Lead from the front, not the middle. Remember, if you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything.
Finally, let me close by saying this: Now is the time for heroes, not cowards. You’ve been given a second chance, OMA. Don’t blow it.