Four months on the line: Best Theratronics workers are still on strike with no end in sight

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Manufacturing workers at Kanata’s Best Theratronics Ltd. first hit the picket lines on May 1 after their employer offered them a two-year contract with no pay increases, plus an additional $25 for safety glasses.

Twelve Theratronics workers represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) joined the 44 manufacturing workers nine days later.

More than four months on, the few workers who haven’t drifted off the new jobs are still on the lines, bolstered last week by union supporters from all over Ontario and Quebec.

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Unifor, which represents the manufacturing workers, says they have heard little from Theratronics, a medical technology company purchased in 2007 from MDS Nordion for a reported $15 million. At the time, Nordion said it was divesting itself of “non-strategic product lines.”

Best Theratronics produces and maintains external beam therapy units used in cancer treatment, self-contained blood irradiators and cyclotrons. In 2021, company president Krish Suthanthiran said the company’s products are used by more than 2,000 cancer centers globally, but none in Canada.

Suthanthiran’s Springfield, Virginia-based TeamBest Global Companies empire spans the globe.

Kanata workers have seen an average annual wage increase of 1.1 per cent over the past 16 years, said Unifor. According to the union, managers and a lawyer for the company have come to the bargaining table, but Suthanthiran insists he’s the only one who can put more money on the table.

The employer’s actions are “tantamount to union busting. And I don’t say that lightly,” said Unifor national president Lana Payne.

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“Labour laws were built for people who follow the rules. We have an employer who isn’t following the rules.”

Unifor’s lead negotiator Janet Malek, said she has never seen anything like it.

“This is a very unusual situation, and were doing everything we can for the members. But it’s hard to have hope when things are so slow.”

It has been a long, hot summer and now autumn is closing in, say the striking workers. Only about 18 manufacturing workers remain, said Unifor Local 1541 president Steve LaBelle.

“The weather’s not getting any better for us. Emotionally, physically, financially, we’re struggling.”

By his own account, Suthanthiran is a bootstraps kind of boss. In a May 18 email, he rebuked the striking workers, saying the recent challenges at Best Theratronics are “unfortunate, but predictable Canadian way of Life,” and hinting darkly that he plans to expand his manufacturing operations in India, Europe and the U.S.

“I work every day , 7 days a week , my habit since Childhood . Mind is a terrible thing to waste ,” Suthanthiran wrote in an email with idiosyncratic capitalization and punctuation. He added that felt “sad” that striking workers had traded an air-conditioned workplace and free meals for unpredictable weather and “hanging outside our building.”

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Suthanthiran “may very well be in the running for Canada’s worst boss.” said Payne.

“The challenge here is a simple one. We have an employer who refuses to bargain. He has refused to respect labour law in Canada.”

According to his biography, Suthanthiran was born in southern India in 1939, and came to Ottawa in 1969 a year after his father’s cancer death. He had $400 and only broken English and pursued a master’s degree in engineering at Carleton University, graduating in 1971. Unable to find a job in Canada, he said he contemplated pursuing a medical degree or PhD in engineering, but instead aimed for a career in cancer treatment.

In the summer of 1972, while as an engineer in a Washington D.C. hospital, Suthanthiran came to Ottawa to attend the International Congress on Medical Physics and visited Theratronics, then a Crown corporation of Atomic Energy Canada Ltd., for a tour of the manufacturing facilities.

Suthanthiran has lofty ambitions. All of his company names start with the word “Best.” In 2004, he bought the ghost town of Kitsault, B.C., built during the molybdenum rush of the 1970s to house over 1,200 people, touting the town frozen in time as a haven for artists and scientists or a natural gas hub.

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In 2021, Suthanthiran announced he had founded a political party/think tank called the “Proud Canadian Party” and said he would release more information to lay out a “Great Vision for Canada to benefit all Canadians now, and for the future generations of Canadians and immigrants.”

In between those two events, Belgium sought assistance from Canada under a mutual legal assistance treaty. On behalf of Belgium, counsel for the Attorney General of Canada obtained a search warrant, authorizing the search of Best Theratronics’ offices in Canada for records relating to what Belgium regarded as “criminal transactions,” according to a summary filed to the Supreme Court of Canada. Best Theratronics’ Canadian premises were searched and records were seized.

Suthanthiran claims he has invested more than $100 million U.S. in facility improvements, new machine tools and new product developments. In 2020, Best Theratonics added 30 new employees for a second manufacturing shift at its Ottawa facility, to increase production capacity, in spite of COVID-19 challenges of a nearly 50 per cent reduction in income, he said in one press release.

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In his email to workers in May, Suthanthiran said MDS Nordion was about to shut down Theratronics before he purchased the division and because of “recent challenges” in manufacturing products at the Kanata plant, he was transferring the work to his other companies and outside contractors.

Manufacturing in Canada is “a challenging and expensive task with significant unpredictability,” he said in the email to staff.

Unifor has filed a bad faith bargaining complaint at the federal labour board, asking the board to order Theratronics back to the table and has a meeting with federal Minister of Labour Steve MacKinnon later this month, said Payne.

Theratronics workers are under federal jurisdiction because they handle nuclear products. “We’re concerned that inexperienced people may now be handling nuclear products,” she said.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which regulates nuclear energy, facilities and materials, said Best Theratronics informed it of the strike in May and has been providing updates on a regular basis.

The CNSC received concerns from Unifor and the PSAC as well as from Kanata-Carleton MP Jenna Sudds on Aug. 20, said a spokesperson for the regulator.

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“On both occasions, CNSC inspectors visited the facility to investigate the matters and did not identify any concerns with Best Theratronics Ltd. related to our regulatory oversight or find evidence to support the concerns raised. Our staff continue to monitor Best Theratronics Ltd. and all nuclear licensees for regulatory compliance to ensure the safety of workers, the public and the environment.”

James Thuot, a striking machinist, says many of the workers are skilled tradespeople who can easily get jobs elsewhere.  One of the reasons he has remained on the picket lines is because his wife died of cancer five years ago, he said.

“It’s rewarding work. I know what it’s like for a family with cancer. So, yeah, that’s why I’m sticking it out.”

Unusual for the president of an international technology company, Suthanthiran puts his personal email address and phone number on his press releases.

In a response to a request from the Ottawa Citizen for an interview about the strike, Suthanthiran replied promptly but cryptically.

“Thanks a million. I will be addressing it over the next days and weeks and will copy you on all of these.”

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