EMC News – BFI Canada Inc. workers, members of Local 1338-02 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) are ready to go on strike if, it notes, the company doesn’t show more openness to their contract demands. The workers are responsible for recycling and waste collection in the west end.

The 40 workers, who collect residential and commercial garbage and recycling for approximately 25 per cent of Ottawa, have voted over 90 per cent in favour of strike action if a collective agreement is not reached with the employer. The strike vote took place March 17.

In a press release, the union notes it has been frustrated with what it claims the employer’s refusal to bargain fairly. The bargaining has stumbled on wages, hours of work and overtime, and has come to a halt over benefits such as healthcare insurance, long term disability, etc.

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Down the road from the Copper Cliff smelter, where the Inco Superstack reaches 380 metres into a clear winter sky, striking Steelworkers stamp their heavy boots and feed a smoking fire pit with scrap wood. Massive ore trucks, engines growling, wait for permission to drive through the picket line. It is a familiar ritual; after 10 or 15 minutes, the picket captain signals the drivers to proceed and go about their business at the smelter-their business being strikebreaking.

When Local 6500 of the United Steelworkers walked off the job at the Vale Inco nickel mines, it was mid-July. The progression from agreeable summer weather to minus 20 C has been brutal. The best to be said about minus 20 is that it’s better than minus 30, just like strike pay of $200 a week is better than no pay at all. It’s hardly surprising that there’s little of the bravado that usually sustains picket lines.

The downbeat atmosphere may also reflect a sense among the strikers that the world has changed and that their strike has not been noticed by Canadians. There have been many strikes in Inco’s history-but every other one was decided in Canada. Now Inco is a subsidiary of a company based far away.

If the long stalemate in Sudbury had a sound, it might be that of the other shoe falling. When the takeover binge of the mid-2000s saw many of Canada’s pre-eminent companies disappear into foreign hands, the debate over the “hollowing out” of the domestic economy was muted. After all, Vale, like other acquisitors, made undertakings to preserve jobs and, in fact, to carry on much like before.

Now, it appears, things look very different to Vale.

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The union representing Sechelt municipal employees has applied to the Labour Relations Board for mediation to try to work out a renewed collective bargaining agreement with the District of Sechelt.

“We are hoping mediation will help both sides reach an agreement,” said B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union (BCGEU) president Darryl Walker in a press release. “Our members provide important services for the people of Sechelt and we want to reach an agreement and move forward.”

The union’s contract with the District expired Dec. 31, 2009. Both sides rejected an earlier tentative agreement.

The union, which represents 36 Sechelt employees who work at municipal hall and provide support services, said that money is the key issue. The union is looking for “the same 3.25 per cent increase District councillors voted themselves,” the union statement said.

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Local U.S. Steel workers are claiming the steel giant is skirting around its Nanticoke mill by rerouting its operations through an intricate processing procedure. In response, workers erected a secondary picket line outside of the former Nelson Steel pickling facility on Tuesday.

While transport trucks back into loading bays, a handful of locked out workers have rallied around the now U.S. Steel pickling division to draw attention to the ongoing business. Workers claim steel slabs made at Hamilton’s U.S. Steel facility are being rolled into coils in the United States. The coils are then shipped back to Hamilton, where they are eventually pickled at the former Nelson facility -just a stone’s throw away from the locked out Nanticoke steel mill. The finished products are supposedly destined for Honda Canada.

From first a slab in Hamilton to coil in Nanticoke, this 1,500-kilo-metre trip is clearly politically motivated, said Paul Mason, political action chair of the United Steelworkers Local 8782.

“They’re willing to drive 1,500 kilometres to make a point,” he said, explaining it is clearly not a cost efficient process.

The local union also takes issue with the steel being labelled Canadian when, in fact, the steel is also being handled on United States soil.

“We object to that very, very strongly,” he added.

Local 8782 workers are employed and continue to work at the Nanticoke pickling facility. They have not been affected by the upheaval at the neighbouring U.S. Steel plant because they are under a different contract, Mason explained.

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BOWMANVILLE — A strike at St. Marys Cement’s Bowmanville plant continues, but a deal has been hammered out to allow trucks faster access to the site.

The approximately 100 Canadian Auto Workers Local 222 workers hit the bricks March 12. Pensions are the major issue.

Wednesday, though, the two sides did come to an agreement with regard to allowing trucks to cross the picket line. Each truck had been held up 15 minutes, beginning when it arrived at the picket line, meaning each one could be held up for several 15-minute periods, depending on how many trucks were ahead of it in line.

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The intent of United Steelworkers Bridging the Gap Rally may have been to send a message about international union solidarity to strike-bound Vale Inco Ltd.

But for one single mother of three, it was an experience that empowered her to believe more than ever that the fight she has been waging for a long eight months can be won by workers like her.

Nancy Marchand, a 13-year employee on Frood-Stobie’s shaft crew, hoisted her daughter, Emily, 2, in the air and raised the girl’s tiny arm in victory with her own when speaker after speaker at the rally earned standing ovations for their powerful messages.

Marchand, her daughter, and sons Maxim, 8, and Gabriel, 10, were among a crowd of about 4,000 who took over Sudbury Communty Arena after marching and chanting from the Steelworkers’ Hall on Brady Street.

Organizers estimated as many as 5,000 placard-bearing, flag-waving strikers, family members, members of other unions and community supporters — hundreds bused in from southern Ontario — took part in the parade.

It could have been deja vu all over again because Bridging the Gap was similar to a rally organized by USW in September with an international solidarity theme, two months into the strike by 3,400 Steelworkers in Sudbury and Port Colborne, and in Voisey’s Bay, NL.

But Monday’s rally built on the momentum established by the Jan. 13 six-month rally that attracted more than 2,000 people, and demonstrated that strikers are more committed to winning their “fair deal” now than they were in the fall.

The rally was held 10 days after 88% of voting Sudbury Steelworkers and 98% of voting strikers in Port Colborne rejected an offer to settle the strike from Vale Inco.

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London, England (CNN) — British Airways cabin crew members will go ahead with their strikes beginning at midnight Friday after talks between the union and the airline broke down, the airline and union said Friday.

British Airways Chief Executive Willie Walsh and the joint general secretary of the Unite union, Tony Woodley, met late into the night Thursday and again Friday in an attempt to avert two consecutive weekend strikes. Both men emerged Friday afternoon and announced the effort had failed.

“This company does not want to negotiate,” Woodley said of British Airways. “This company wants ultimately to go to war with my members and the union.”

Walsh said he “deeply regrets” the inconvenience the strikes will cause to passengers but said the company will still try to operate as many flights as possible.

“I am disappointed the union has not been able to see the sense of the proposal we tabled today,” Walsh said.

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Garbage and recycling pickup could be disrupted in some parts of Ottawa starting at the end of April.

Garbage collectors who work in the city’s west end have voted 90 per cent in favour of going on strike if they fail to reach an agreement with their employer, BFI Canada Inc., the Canadian Union of Public Employees said in a news release Thursday.

The strike vote was held Wednesday among the 40 BFI employees represented by CUPE Local 1338-02.

The company has a contract to collect residential waste in Kanata, Bells Corners, West Carleton and other parts of Ottawa west of Highway 416, said Daniel Sauve, president of the union local. It also collects commercial waste across the city.

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240 City of Kitchener workers could be walking the picket line as early as tomorrow morning.  The outside and fleet workers – members of CUPE Local 68 – will be in a legal strike position at 12:01 a.m. Thursday.
Their duties include everything from maintenance of city arenas, including the Aud., to roads and sewers.
The city says it has a back up plan and hopes to keep all of its facilities and services operational.

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CAW Local 222 members have gone on strike at the St. Marys Cement plant in Bowmanville, Ontario as they fight company demands to roll-back their pension plan.

The workers are fighting company demands to change the pension plan from a defined benefit plan with a fixed level of benefits to a defined contribution plan, which could mean lower benefits on retirement.

CAW national representative Keith Osborne said the company wants to take the responsibility of maintaining pension benefits off its books and put it on the backs of workers through a defined contribution plan, which is subject to the whims of markets.

“The workers are determined to fight this roll back in their pensions,” said Osborne.

CAW Local 222 President Chris Buckley is urging CAW members to visit the picket line and show their support. “This is an important struggle against company attempts to attack workers pensions.”

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