The Red Cross of Northern Ohio was forced to cancel its single biggest blood drive of the year this week when (coincidentally) Teamsters Local 507 took 250 blood collection workers out on strike on Tuesday. The Red Cross has been in negotiations with the union since August and talks with a federal mediator broke down last week. The union has rejected the identical offer accepted by 14 other collection worker locals around the country. That offer includes the same healthcare benefits package the Red Cross offers all its non-union employees. A spokesperson for the Red Cross said negotiations stalled only on the healthcare issue although the union is now making claims of short staffing that they say threatens the safety of the blood supply. (If the safety of the blood supply has truly been at risk one must wonder why the Teamsters are only now first alerting the rest of us!) The strike poses no immediate threat to the area’s blood supply although the Red Cross says it’s impossible to predict when a scaled-back collection schedule will cause problems for northern Ohio hospitals and their patients.
