A labour dispute involving the refuelling supervisors and administrative staff at Vancouver International Airport delayed some flights Monday, a union representative said.

“We counted between 30 and 40 delays,” said Stephen Dunsmore, regional vice-president of the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees, such as five Air Canada flights and five Air Canada Jazz flights.

Dunsmore said the delays were not caused by pickets, but were related to refuelling.

GlobeGround Fuel Services, also know as Servisair, has been in talks since last fall with the union that represents the workers who oversee the refuelling of all airlines that operate out of YVR.

The two sides have been working with a federal conciliator since March.

The Paris-based company brought in replacement workers yesterday after locking out 21 of its employees.

Both sides met Sunday evening at the bargaining table, he said, but the GlobeGround representatives walked away before much progress could be made.

Read More…

BOWMANVILLE — The strike at Bowmanville’s St. Marys Cement has entered its 18th week, and talks between the two sides have broken off.

Approximately 100 Canadian Auto Workers Local 222 workers hit the bricks March 12, with pensions as the major issue.

Talks broke off last Friday, CAW local president Chris Buckley said.

“We’re waiting to get a signal the company’s ready to go back to the table,” he said, noting the union’s willingness to bargain to end the “terrible dispute.”

But, “St. Marys has no desire to end the strike, because they’re running the plant with scabs,” Mr. Buckley said.

Replacement workers are bused in and out, past the picket line on Waverley Road, south of Hwy. 401, each day, and the plant is said to be running at 60 to 80 per cent capacity, Mr. Buckley said, calling on the Province for anti-scab legislation.

Read More…

The war of words continues between Essar Steel Algoma and United Steelworkers Local 2724.

Public talk is usually minimal during contract negotiations, but Essar Algoma and its salaried workers, who have been talking a new deal for the past six weeks, have gone public with their message three times in the past week.

A week ago it was Local 2724 issuing their view on the slow pace of negotiations following its strike authorization vote. Monday it was Essar Algoma putting out a “negotiations update” through its corporate Internet blog and late Tuesday afternoon it was 2724 responding to the company’s update.

Three-year contracts between Essar Algoma and its more than 3,000 unionized employees, represented by USW Local 2251 and Local 2724, expire in less than three weeks, in 17 days, at 12:01 a.m. Aug. 1.

Despite conflicting messages on what has transpired both the company and its salaried workers remain talking in a downtown Sault Ste. Marie hotel as bargaining crunch time approaches.

“The entire update is one of Essar trying to put a pretty face on some very ugly, regressive proposals,” said Ian Kersley, president of Local 2724, representing nearly 600 supervisory and technical personnel within Essar Algoma.

“The owners of Essar are trying to turn back the clock on employee rights.”

Essar’s message Monday was that it needs to “amend work terms” with its front-line supervisors, represented by 2724, as current contractual restrictions are restricting supervisory mobility and creating operating inefficiencies.

Company proposals for its salaried workforce, the blog lso contain some provisions for shared services and sharing tasks among the global Essar Group of companies, where it is most economical.

No current employee’s job would be affected by shared services, it stated, competitors use such a strategy to reduce costs … “what we are seeking is a level playing field.”

“We have made the company plenty of money in recent years under the existing language,” said Kersley, who added his membership was “extremely angry” with the company update.

“The steel market is dictating the company’s bottom line (a nearly $400 million loss this past fiscal year) not workforce performance … Their concerns can be addressed through existing language adjustments, wholesale change is not necessary.”

The shared services proposal, he said, is “simply exporting good-paying Canadian jobs offshore.”

Kersley claims that information technology work his membership should be doing is now being done in India, as well as some engineering, while out-of-country contract workers have been imported to Essar Algoma and are doing 2724 tasks.

“They say nobody will lose their job as a result of shared services but they cannot guarantee that you won’t be moved elsewhere within the organization to do another task,” said the 2724 president,

While he didn’t want to elaborate too much on bargaining issues, Kersley did say the company is seeking an additional eight hours a week out of its supervisors, from 40 to 48 hours a week, putting them “on call” for rest of the time, with no compensation for overtime.

“The bottom line is that the Ruia family (which controls the Essar Group conglomerate) and Essar bought Algoma Steel to make money and they are making it clear if it means taking away employees’ rights, curtailing their family life, and exporting jobs from the community, then that price must be paid in Sault Ste. Marie for Essar’s increased profit.”

While Local 2251, representing more than 2,500 hourly production, service, maintenance and clerical employees, endorsed an asset integrity agreement with the company last week, in the event of a labor disruption, Local 2724 did not.

Read More…

EMC News – Businesses, light industry, apartment and condominium residents could face disruptions to garbage collection in as little as 10 days unless the company contracted to provide the service presents a serious contract offer, warned Dan Sauve, president, Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), Local 1338.

On July 6, members of Local 1338, representing 65 waste haulers and landfill employees voted more than 95 per cent in favour of taking job action, if necessary, to push back crippling benefit clawbacks proposed by their employer, Waste Management Canada.

“Our members do not want to go on strike, but they sent a clear message yesterday to the employer that they will not turn their backs on decades worth of collective bargaining that helps them provide for their families now, and in their retirement years,” said Sauve.

The union sent a letter today to local businesses and industries in Ottawa, Kanata, West Carleton, Stittsville, Gloucester, Rideau and other area communities warning them of the potential impact of a labour dispute and encouraging them to have contingency plans in place.

“We understand that people may be inconvenienced in the event of a work stoppage, and we felt it was important to let those who could be affected know the current state of negotiations so they could be prepared,” said Sauve.

However, given the employer’s insistence on putting forward major concessions to short- and long-term disability plans, as well as dental and drug benefits, he added that it didn’t appear Waste Management was serious about negotiations.

Read More…

The country’s largest supermarket operator appears to be digging in its heels in the wake of an overwhelming vote by its Ontario workers to support a strike mandate.

Loblaw Cos. Ltd. said “our intention is to obtain the operational flexibility” it needs to compete in what is now a largely non-union industry.

The United Food and Commercial Workers union says that includes demands that its members accept a 25 per cent cut in wages, benefits and pay scales.

“That’s completely unacceptable,” said Kevin Corporon, president of Local 1000A of the UFCW, one of three locals bargaining together. They represent 30,000 workers at Loblaws, Zehrs, Fortinos, Great Food and Real Canadian SuperStores across the province.

More than 97 per cent voted over the weekend in favour of a strike as the two sides head into another round of talks on Monday, July 19, this time with the help of a provincially appointed mediator.

The union is hoping the strike mandate will force Loblaw to take its demands more seriously, saying there has been almost no progress since talks began in April.

But Loblaw says it has little choice noting its stores are earning less today than they were five years ago due to the increasingly competitive landscape and poor economic conditions.

“In many contracts we pay 10 per cent more than competitors and have 15 per cent less flexibility. That’s a real competitive disadvantage. That’s not sustainable,” Loblaw vice-president, public relations, Julija Hunter wrote in an email.

Noting that for the first time in its industry there are more non-unionized than unionized employees, Hunter wrote that 2011 “will be a watershed year.”

It is also the first time the union is bargaining with Loblaw’s new management, led by British retail executive Allan Leighton, who is seen as a tough negotiator.

The entire Ontario supermarket industry has been under growing pressure ever since Wal-Mart Canada Corp. began adding full supermarkets to its general merchandise stores three years ago.

Loblaws responded by opening its own massive supermarket and general merchandise stores under the name Real Canadian SuperStore. Modeled on its highly successful stores in western Canada under that name, Real Canadian Superstore failed to meet expectations in the Ontario market.

Read More…

Workers picketed a Halifax-area Farmers Dairy plant on Sunday, with the workers saying they had been locked out and the company saying the workers were on strike.

A Farmers Dairy spokesman said the Nova Scotia-based firm would continue processing milk at the plant for the duration of the job action.

Many of the affected employees work at the company’s processing and packaging plant on Hammond’s Plains Road near Bedford, N.S., the site of the picket line.

The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, which represents the workers, said a sticking point in the contract dispute is pension cutbacks.

Talks broke down last week and on Wednesday the company filed a notice to lock the workers out and the union filed notice to strike. On Sunday, both said the other followed through Friday night.

Either way, the 240 workers who help pasteurize the milk, package it and distribute it across the Maritimes are off the job.

There were no immediate plans to return to the negotiating table.

The picketing workers were allowing transport trucks and private security vans to cross the line.

“They’ve got scab workers on the inside, man, and we’ve got guys with 23 years and more experience out here and it takes time to get that experience and ship properly,” said Cedric Parsons, a forklift loader at the plant.

Read More…

The longest strike in the history of bruising labour conflict in the rich Sudbury mining region has ended after almost a year.

The United Steelworkers confirmed Thursday night that 3,100 striking members at Vale SA’s sprawling operations in the northern Ontario city and a small refinery in Port Colborne had voted about 75.5 per cent for a five-year contract containing wage improvements and some concessions.

Picket lines will come down during the next week as the Brazil-based mining giant starts a recall of many unhappy workers and a long process of rebuilding labour relations to improve productivity.

“We never got everything we wanted but taking a stand and fighting made a difference,” said Wayne Fraser, the union’s Ontario and Atlantic director. “It was necessary because if you choose to roll over, you are sure to lose. It is historic what happened here. It made change.”

Vale vice-president John Pollesel said the company looks forward to a return by workers after “a long, hard year for everyone.”

“It’s now time to come together and focus on building the strong and sustainable operations that Sudbury and Port Colborne require,” he said in a statement.

The strike became a classic labour-management struggle where Vale used its economic power as one of the world’s biggest mining companies to push for cost cuts against the Steelworkers in a union stronghold.

Vale hired replacement workers to continue operations, fired employees for alleged misconduct, sued the union and spent millions of dollars on extra security.

The strike, which started last July 13, marked the first time the company’s mines and other operations resumed partial production during a strike in more than 50 years that the union had represented workers. It left a lasting impression with them that labour relations had changed, and the strike would be long and hard.

The strike marked the ninth walkout at the former Inco operations since 1958 including an 8 ½-month walkout by more than 11,000 workers in 1978-79. That was the biggest strike in Canadian history in terms of worker-lost days.

Labour watchers say the outcome may prompt other multinational companies in Canada to take similar tough stances against unions to drive down costs and increase profits as global competition increases.

Vale officials have acknowledged the company, which lost hundreds of millions of dollars in output, faces a lot of work in winning the trust and support of workers to boost productivity as costs rise in mining the region’s ore reserves of nickel, copper, silver gold and other minerals.

Vale and the union finally reached agreement on all terms last month, but the deal stalled for several days on the issue of dealing with the fate of 12 fired workers. A provincial labour board will start hearing arguments to settle the lingering dispute on Friday.

Fraser, a former Inco worker, called negotiations with the company “horrifying” during the last year.

Read More…

The threat of a garbage strike for businesses and light industry is now looming over Ottawa this summer.

The union representing 65 waste haulers and landfill employees employed by Waste Management are threatening to go on strike by the end of the month if a contact is not finalized.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees says its members voted more than 95 per cent in favour of job action in as little as 17 days to push back a proposal from Waste Management to claw back benefits.

CUPE local President Dan Sauve tells CFRA News that after five days of negotiations, the only outstanding issues are wages and a proposal from Waste Management to cut benefits by 25 per cent.

The union represents workers who collect garbage at businesses and light industry across Ottawa, and recycling from apartment and condominium buildings.

Read More…

Frustration is mounting for gaming employees with Casino Regina after a meeting last week with their employer, the Crown-owned Saskatchewan Gaming Corp., failed to strike a new deal.

Communication between Sask. Gaming and the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), which represents about 425 gaming employees at the casino, has been minimal since the strike began more than a month ago.

Both parties had high hopes an agreement could be reached when the corporation arranged the meeting last week, but Robin Benson, regional executive vice president of PSAC, said they now seem even further apart.

She said the corporation is willing to increase wages, but not without scaling back some positions to part-time.

“We had really hoped they were serious about us coming back to the table. We are nowhere close to an agreement,” said Bensen.

“You can’t take from one hand and give to the other. A wage increase, but no full-time hours, is just not possible. If you are never going to be more than a part-time worker, how is that a career?”

On June 3, more than 400 gaming employees walked off the floor and went on strike after failed attempts to reach a new contract with their employer.

Food and beverage employees also are on the picket line in support of PSAC’s decision to strike, leaving the casino operating with limited services and shorter hours.

The union members, which include dealers, cashiers, security guards and slot attendants, have been without a contract since May 2009. Wage increases, family leave and night-shift premiums are the outstanding issues.

Members of PSAC, along with the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, will be hosting a rally outside the Legislative Building on Thursday, and have also been in contact with local MLAs to step in.

Blaine Pilatzke, vice-president of human resources for Sask. Gaming, said he was hoping the meeting would spark further discussions, but was disappointed when nothing further materialized.

He said Sask. Gaming presented a fair offer that included 5.5 per cent in total increased compensation over a three-year period and a realignment of existing provisions within the collective agreement to address some of the union’s priorities.

The offer also included improvements to health care benefits.

“We presented a couple of options to try to address some of their priorities, but those were rejected,” said Pilatzke.

“It’s been more than 30 days and the corporation recognizes it’s difficult on the picketers, but it’s also difficult on our out-of-scope staff who have been asked to perform additional functions as well. I would hope that at some point in the near future we can get back and have some further discussions.”

Read More…