Nearly a third of Nova Scotia's 911 dispatch unit is off on leave, and CUPW's Craig Power calls the workload a direct health risk
Chronic understaffing at Nova Scotia's 911 medical dispatch service is forcing individual workers to cover more than one function at once, a practice the union representing them calls a direct health and safety risk. Just before the bargaining unit walked off the job on July 17, 2026, 26 of its 86 members were off work on sick leave, Workers' Compensation Board (WCB) claims or similar leave, according to Craig Power, Atlantic regional representative and lead negotiator for the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) Local 015, Nova Scotia Medical Communications.
"If someone goes off for mental health reasons, it's assumed to be a WCB injury, because of the nature of the job," Power said in an interview, describing the mental health toll on emergency dispatch workers as a symptom of a staffing model that hasn't kept pace with the workload.
Why one dispatcher ends up covering two roles at once
Power said the understaffing regularly forces a single worker to dispatch multiple geographic areas or combine call-taking and dispatching duties simultaneously, tasks he said should each be dedicated to one person. "You have one person dispatching two areas and call-taking at the same time. It should be dedicated to one area only, because you can get overwhelmed," he said.
High turnover compounds the strain. Emergency Medical Care Inc. (EMC), the Medavie Health Services subsidiary that operates the province's ambulance and medical communications services under contract with Nova Scotia's Emergency Health Services, trains 10 to 12 new dispatchers at a time, Power said, but retains few of them given the combination of pay and stress. "For the pay, I wouldn't do it myself," he said. Starting communications officers earn $23.77 an hour while handling medical calls across the entire province, a rate Power described as well below what comparable dispatchers earn with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and in Halifax.
A labour board ruling exposed the size of the staffing gap
The understaffing behind these health and safety concerns is not new, but it only became a formal bargaining issue after a Nova Scotia Labour Board ruling forced both sides to renegotiate staffing levels, illustrating how essential services agreements shape health care strikes across the province. In March 2026, board chair Jasmine Walsh found that a 2021 essential services agreement (ESA) between EMC and CUPW Local 015 was void, because EMC's shift totals had climbed substantially since 2021 without the agreement being updated to match. The two sides were sent back to negotiate a new ESA, which the board imposed on June 26, 2026.
That process is what surfaced the numbers now driving the dispute. "It wasn't even a demand when we first started negotiating," Power said, "but throughout the process we had to renegotiate a new ESA, and we got staffing data. We found out the employer's original ask to the board was that they needed 20 people on days, and the average was actually 15." The new ESA adopted EMC's own original figure of 20 weekday staff, a level Power said now exceeds typical pre-strike staffing. "It's actually better staffed now than it has ever been on the weekdays and weeknights," he said.
The union is asking the employer to guarantee that same standard permanently: 20 staff on weekdays, 13 on weeknights, 14 on weekend days, and 13 on weekend nights, mirroring the figures Power said EMC itself proposed to the board in February 2026.
Where the negotiations stand
The staffing and health and safety concerns remain unresolved as the strike, which began when Nova Scotia dispatchers first walked off the job three weeks ago, continues. EMC delivered what it called a final offer through a conciliator on Friday and asked for a response by 4:30 p.m. Power said the union countered roughly 10 minutes before the deadline. "I think they're going to say no to our offer, so I'm not that optimistic," he said, adding that EMC had pushed the union to bring its offer directly to a member vote.
The union is running a partial strike: weekday and weeknight shifts stay fully staffed by bargaining unit members, while on weekend nights only two members report for duty, on Friday and Saturday, with managers covering the rest. Power said dispatchers are "holding strong" despite the toll of a three-week strike, in part because they're used to working shorthanded. The bigger source of anxiety, he said, is not knowing how long the dispute will last. "This thing could drag. We're scared that it could drag on for a long time," he said.
Power argued the cost of resolving the dispute is small relative to the province's budget. "There's 86 people. It's a rounding figure," he said, calling on the province to "come to the table and pay these people properly."
EMC's earlier public statements said it remained committed to the bargaining process and that contingency plans were in place to keep essential services running throughout the disruption. Canadian Occupational Safety has not yet received comment on Friday's exchange of offers.
