On September 9, after just one day on the picket line, the Manitoba Labour Board ordered 350 striking Dynacare laboratory workers back to work.
It was a move that has shocked Canada’s labour movement. The Manitoba government specifically asked the labour board to force the striking workers back to work while the labour board could determine whether their work is an essential service. That province’s government enacted a new “essential services” labour classification system in 2024, and this is the first time they are using it to strikebreak.
How did we get here?
The laboratory technologists and technicians, represented by the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals (MAHCP), have been without a collective agreement since March 31.
Outpatient laboratory services—that is, lab services like urine or blood tests which do not require overnight stays in a health care facility—in Manitoba have been solely outsourced to Dynacare since 2017. Dynacare is a Brampton, Ontario-based corporation owned by North Carolina-based Labcorp, and its workers perform about 40 per cent of all lab testing in the province.
As recently as 2017, private-sector lab workers had wage parity with their public sector counterparts. But through successive outsourcing agreements between the Manitoba government and Dynacare, these workers lost significant ground.
In 2025, the Manitoba government signed a five-year contract with Dynacare that effectively locked these private-sector lab workers into wages 20 to 50 per cent below their public sector co-workers performing the same work in public hospitals.
The MAHCP’s analysis shows that the cost of restoring wage parity would require approximately $6 million beginning in 2026-27—or less than one-tenth of one per cent of the province’s $10 billion health care budget. Dynacare’s final offer to the union would have “funded less than 15 per cent of the cost of wage parity with public labs,” according to the union.
Dynacare: a window into U.S. corporate health care greed
Some provinces, including B.C., Manitoba, and Ontario, outsource routine outpatient lab testing, specimen collection, and analysis to for-profit corporations, including Dynacare and LifeLabs. Both are owned by highly profitable, publicly traded U.S. health care corporations.
Between 2019-20 and 2024-25, the Manitoba government paid Dynacare $285.8 million for privatized lab services. In the most recent fiscal year available, Dynacare received $45.1 million in public funding from the provincial government.
The commercial contracts between the Manitoba government and Dynacare build in a profit margin for the corporation—which remains secret. However, previous research shows that for-profit lab services providers do just fine—otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the business in the first place.
Although we don’t have the specific financials for Dynacare, the parent corporation—Labcorp—is a highly profitable U.S. health care company. Over the last six years (2020-25), its net profits have ranged from $418 million to $2.4 billion each year. Labcorp took in more than $876 million in 2025.
Clearly, Dynacare’s refusal to work towards a fair collective agreement with its Manitoba employees is not about inability to pay—it’s about greed.
Greed is undeniably the dominant operating logic of the for-profit U.S. health care industry. It’s a system that extracts wealth from households and governments.
While it is not surprising that Dynacare is resistant to lowering its profit margins for laboratory workers to receive wage parity with their hospital-based colleagues, there are short-term and long-term solutions within the Manitoba government’s power.
The Manitoba government created the situation, it has the power to solve it
The Manitoba government signed a commercial outsourcing agreement with Dynacare in 2025. Under any agreement, the provincial government can push for minimum staffing standards and compensation. Clearly, the Manitoba government didn’t do this—and appears to have signed a contract that shortchanges these workers. In fact, Manitoba’s health minister openly bragged about freezing Dynacare’s rate in the first year of the new contract, which they must have known would put downward pressure on wages for these publicly-funded workers.
As the union has revealed from the commercial contract, the provincial government has broad authority to direct Dynacare in this situation. Specifically, “the Service Provider [Dynacare] agrees: (f) to comply with all reasonable directions and requests of Manitoba.” Even though Premier Wab Kinew has suggested that his government is powerless in this situation, the government has, in fact, significant leverage under the existing agreement.
As well, if the provincial government wanted to immediately resolve the labour dispute and ensure wage parity—without demanding that Dynacare find wage increases from their existing profits—the province could provide additional funding to Dynacare and require those dollars be directed to funding a new collective agreement.
The Manitoba government agreement with Dynacare expires in 2030. Over the longer-term, the provincial government could start immediately working with provincial health authorities to increase public-sector capacity as a clear signal of its intentions to repatriate privatized lab services into the public system. This move would certainly get the attention of Dynacare and would very likely encourage the U.S.-owned provider to become a better employer.
This is the inherent problem with privatizing the delivery of medically necessary health care services to large (U.S.) corporations. Provincial health care systems become reliant on these for-profit providers and lose the capacity to deliver these services in-house. As these corporations become entrenched, greed and profit-taking come before health workers and patients. It’s the same story that plays out again and again.
Despite the Manitoba government’s claims that it remains powerless in the face of an U.S. health care corporation, there are a number of options available to the provincial government.
The Manitoba government should stand up to U.S. corporate greed—and stand up for our health care sovereignty.
About the author
Andrew Longhurst
Andrew Longhurst is a senior researcher and political economist, with a focus on health policy, at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. His work has been published in academic journals and by research institutes, including Canadian Journal on Aging, Political Geography, the CCPA, and the Parkland Institute.
