April 9, 2000
Volume 30, No. 14
First SEIU Unit Joins CAW, More Votes This Week
The Ontario Labour Relations Board last week counted the first vote from an application for workers to join the Canadian Auto Workers union and leave Service Employees International Union Local 268. The results were CAW 24 and SEIU 4 in this unit of Victorian Order of Nurses, which has members in 12 communities from Thunder Bay to Marathon in Ontario. On Monday, April 17, the OLRB was slated to start counting 76 more applications where ballot boxes were sealed after a series of recent votes by workers to join the CAW. These applications to join the CAW cover 5,400 workers in hospitals, nursing and retirement homes in Ontario. Earlier this month, the OLRB denied proposals by SEIU lawyers to stay or adjourn the proceedings in connection with the CAW displacement applications before the board. As well, an Ontario court dismissed SEIU's motion for judicial review designed to stop the board from counting the ballots.
CAW Reaches Tentative Agreement At First Air
The Canadian Auto Workers union has reached a tentative agreement covering 325 workers at First Air. It's a first agreement for the cargo agents, cargo handlers, customer service agents and coordinators who work in 22 different locations for the airline, which primarily serves Canada's north. The tentative collective agreement was reached late in the evening April 12. Negotiations began last August. The workers, who are members of CAW Local 2213, vote on the tentative agreement over the next month.
NWT Government Passes Motion To Support Royal Oak Workers
The government of the Northwest Territories is urging the federal government to take immediate steps to ensure former employees and pensioners of the Royal Oak Giant Mine in Yellowknife get their full earned pension entitlement and severance. The motion carried by the NWT legislature calls on the federal government to amend the Pension Benefits Act and the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to "protect the rights and interests of all Canadian workers so that this unfair and unacceptable situation does not occur again." It states the closure of the Giant Mine has had a devastating effect on former employees and the City of Yellowknife. It also blasts Royal Oak Mines for underfunding the workers' pension funds, which will result in a 25 per cent cut to retirees pensions as of April 1, 2000. The workers are members of CAW Local 2304. The motion also states that current federal legislation provides little or no relief or protection for former employees of Giant Mine or any other Canadian workers who are adversely affected by corporate closures and bankruptcies.
Touch Medicine
The federal government's announcement April 13 of crab quota reductions is "very tough medicine" that will have a significant negative impact on harvesters and plant workers, said Earle McCurdy, president of the CAW/FFAW. McCurdy, in a press release, told the Newfoundland and federal governments that special measures may be required to ease the impact on plant workers. It is doubly tough to accept the reductions midway through a three-year plan, particularly in light of the costs fishermen have incurred to improve vessels in order to fish further from shore. McCurdy said crab harvesters question the accuracy of the trawl survey that formed the basis of the scientific advice the government used.
Subsidized Daycare Program to Begin in BC
The establishment of a universal daycare program is expected to be underway in British Columbia by next January. The program will take at least five years to fully implement, but the first stage will be subsidized before and after school care for six to 12-year old kids attending programs on school grounds across the province. BC Social Development Minister Jan Pullinger said about 10,000 BC children attend daycare on school grounds, but the NDP government plans to increase that number. The plan is for parents to pay about $8 a day for their children, which is about $100 a month less than parents usually pay if they don't qualify for existing daycare subsidies, the Canadian Press reports. Low-income parents will get a further subsidy. "We want to move to a fully publicly funded, universal, regulated, licensed system," Pullinger said. BC's plans follow the lead of Quebec, which already has underway a universal child care program. The CAW recently launched a major campaign, including billboards, advertisements, educational materials, post cards to MPs and more aimed at pressuring the federal government to establish a national child care program.
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty March
Along with community and union allies, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty is planning a march on Queen's Park on Thursday, June 15. The march is to support demands for the legislature to hear a delegation of people who have experienced the hunger, evictions, police harassment and homelessness caused by the Harris government's war on the poor in Ontario. The delegation will demand reversal of the four most odious of Harris's attacks on the poor - the cancellation of affordable housing programs, the 22 per cent cut to social assistance, the so-called "Tenant Protection Act" and the repressive "Safe Streets Act." CAW locals in Ontario are urged to send a contingent to join the march starting at Allen Gardens at 12:00 noon, Thursday, June 15. Allen Gardens is located at Carlton and Sherbourne Streets in downtown Toronto. "I agree it's time that the legislature heard those who have been evicted from their homes, who have been left destitute, and who face constant police harassment for merely trying to survive," CAW president Buzz Hargrove states in a letter to CAW local presidents in Ontario. For more information on the march contact John Clarke, provincial organizer, OCAP, at (416) 925-6939 or CAW staff representative Steve Watson at (416) 718-8462.
Bulletins
REMINDER: First CAW National Youth Conference The first CAW National Youth Conference will be held at the CAW Family Education Centre from May 5 to 7. The conference will focus on issues that affect youth in the workplace and society. The target group for this conference are those members under 30 years of age. For more information contact Karen Clark at 1-800-268-5763 or Tashlyn Chase at 1-800-465-0974.
WEB PREVIEW:
CAW Web Page Here's a brief look at just some of the information available on the CAW home page. Facts from the Fringe An irregular and irreverent serving of economic tidbits No. 23, April 11, 2000 Buddy Act The heroes of the current animated film El Dorado are two 16th Century Spanish con artists, Tulio and Miguel. Whenever they get caught in a con and are about to be captured (or worse), they break into a well-practiced routine... For the full text, go to the CAW web site, www.caw.ca, under Newsletters - Facts from the Fringe.
