Best Theratronics: Kanata manufacturing workers on strike for over 5 months [Video]

More than 40 employees at Best Theratronics Ltd. in Kanata went on strike five and a half months ago – a situation that Canada’s largest private sector union says is highly unusual.

Unifor, the union who represents the workers at the manufacturing facility just off March Road, says the strike has not ended because of the actions of the company’s owner, who they say has refused to negotiate with workers in good faith.

Best Theratronics manufactures external beam radiation therapy units, self-contained blood-irradiators and cyclotrons. The medical devices are often used for patients undergoing cancer radiation therapy. The company is listed as a nuclear facility by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

The workers have been without a contract since March 2023 and began to strike on May 1, 2024 after the employer proposed a two-year contract with no wage increase, Unifor says. About a dozen members from the Public Service Alliance of …