Labour news from across Canada

Two items enclosed.

Rank and File.ca, published on Nov 5, 2012, http://rankandfile.ca/?p=455

Rankandfile.ca has received news that the executives of the Calgary, Saskatoon and Winnipeg CUPW locals have decided to oppose the Urban Operations tentative agreement announced on October 5. This confirms informal conversations we’ve had with other postal workers that there are serious reservations and often outright opposition to what is being proposed. The two-tier wage and pension scheme are the outstanding problems, but Jeff Callaghan, the CUPW Atlantic Region National Director, has raised more:

“The tentative agreement you are being asked to ratify includes many of the same rollbacks members voted overwhelming against and went on strike just last year to oppose: accepting to give up our Sick Leave benefits for STD, eliminating a wash-up break and the imposition of a two-tier wage scheme for new hires.

It also includes a major change to our Defined Contribution Pension Plan for new hires. So while wages, benefits and pensions of current workers are protected, for now, workers coming into the post office will face a totally different picture. They will start working beside you making $6 an hour less and will have to work almost a third of their career before they make what you make in wages (7 years). These workers will also have to work 5 extra years before they will become eligible to retire.”

Look forward to more coverage, including interviews, by Rankandfile.ca on the CUPW tentative agreement vote that is taking place between November 13 and December 19.

Thousands of Ontario high school teachers, education workers, support and admin staff represented by OSSTF may soon take job action as seven school boards will be in a legal strike position on November 7. As the Globe and Mail reports:

“Mr. Coran called the job action, which looks nearly inevitable at this point, a “sort of administrative strike” as the types of services teachers will stop providing include attending staff meetings, supervising students outside the classroom and answering parent e-mails outside of school hours.”

Meanwhile, the Ontario legislature has been prorogued since October 15 when Dalton McGuinty unexpectedly announced his decision to resign as Premier. While his resignation can be attributed to a combination deep unpopularity, deteriorating labour relations and scandal surrounding the closure of two power stations, the prorogation itself is also deeply worrying.

The prorogation confirms a trend which began with Harper’s 2008 and 2009 prorogations of Parliament and has now spread to the provincial level courtesy of Liberal premiers in BC and Ontario. These prorogations are suspending Canada’s already-limited forms of representative democracy to advance narrow, partisan political agendas. Harper prorogued in late 2008 to avoid a constitutionally-legitimate attempt by the Liberals and NDP to form a new government. Then he prorogued in late 2009 to avoid parliamentary investigations into Canadian knowledge of and complicity in the torture of prisoners by our so-called allies in the Afghan National Police. BC Premier Christy Clark and Dalton McGuinty have both prorogued in attempts to dig their way out of labour problems amidst deep unpopularity and scandal. How far are federal and provincial governments willing to go to curtail democratic institutions in order to protect and advance their austerity agendas?

Bill 115 provides an answer for the time being. Even though Ontario’s legislature is suspended, Bill 115 allows for the provincial cabinet (all of Ontario’s ministers and the Premier) to stop any labour disruption by the teachers unions without legislative approval. This is pre-emptive back-to-work legislation – but without the oversight of the MPPs elected by the people of Ontario. To put it another way, democratic institutions are being pushed aside in order to suspend the rights to collective bargaining and to strike; both of which are protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Bill 115 will be challenged in court and there’s a good chance it will be repealed. But a similar court challenge emerging from the BC teachers struggles of 2003-4, took seven years to resolve. Action is needed in the present, too.

This is the political terrain in which Ontario’s teachers and labour movement finds itself in. It is difficult and unfamiliar for labour and the large numbers of Ontarians opposed to budget cuts, attacks on unions and corruption. For the time being, one can be forgiven if organized labour has no visible strategy for confronting McGuinty’s anti-union agenda at present. However, at some point, a strategy will need to be developed.

Four hundred workers represented by CAW walked off the job in Whitby at Lear Corp. Within hours, the strike against concessions was able to idle one of the lines at the General Motors assembly plant in Oshawa which depends exclusively on car seats supplied by the Whitby factory. Concessions were demanded despite Lear’s profitability and the fact that the workers gave up $30 million in concessions in 2009 to prevent the company’s bankruptcy. On October 30, after only two days, the strike ended but details of bargaining are not yet known.

Meanwhile, 65 workers are on strike at Wescast Industries in Strathroy, Ontario, some 35 kilometres west of London. Represented by CAW Local 504, the workers rejected a “final offer” contract by 60 percent and took to the picket lines on October 27. The union alleges that the employer is not interested in fair bargaining and intends to shut down the plant and move operations to China. Picket lines are 24-hours and CAW Local 27, which represented workers at Electro-Motive Diesel in London, has thrown its support behind the workers. The factory supplies exhaust manifolds for engines built at General Motors in St. Catharines, but the strike is not expected to stop engine production.

By Zoe McKnight, Vancouver Sun, November 5, 2012

Thousands of health care workers in the province voted in favour of job action this weekend, but talk of an all-out strike is premature, the unions’ spokeswoman said.

The strike vote — which garnered 96 per cent support from 46,000 workers — is not necessarily a promise of a walkout, said Bonnie Pearson of the Facilities Bargaining Association. It represents 11 unions, including the Hospital Employees Union (CUPE), which has 43,000 members and is the largest health care union in B.C. “It’s still our view and our objective to negotiate a fair and reasonable wage and collective agreement,” she said. “If those talks are not successful then decisions will be made down the road about whether or when and what type of action to engage in.”

Contract talks have been in progress since February. The association’s collective agreement with the Health Employers Association of B.C. expired in March. At issue is the Health Employers’ insistence a wage increase would have to be offset by union members absorbing a higher proportion of the cost of their benefits package or other equivalent savings of 25 per cent, Pearson said.

There is no deadline for strike action, Pearson added. It’s been three weeks since the last day of talks, but Pearson said she’s hopeful they can resume this week. Most of the employees covered by the strike mandate work in hospitals, residential care, community outreach centres, laboratories and emergency health care facilities. About 70 per cent of the association is made up of HEU workers, as well as bargaining associations for nurses, health science professionals, and community health care workers.

There are 270 job classifications covered by the bargaining association including practical nurses, paramedics, record-keeping staff, lab and pharmacy technicians, dispatch personnel, rehabilitation workers, cleaning and administration staff, tradespeople as well as nurses. Many of those categories include workers who fall under essential services provisions under the Labour Relations Code, and unions are responsible for determining and maintaining appropriate staffing levels. Certain health care workers would still show up for work instead of picketing, for example, but would only perform roles that are considered essential.

The strike vote gives union leaders the authority to order strike action. Pearson said it sends “a crystal clear message to employers and government from our health care workers, and we’re going to use that to return to the bargaining table.”

In 2004, the Hospital Employees Union went on strike for seven weeks, which left the province on the verge of a general strike before an 11th-hour agreement was reached. [Read that story here: https://multipluralworld.com//1665/]