Organized labour needs to raise the temperature at the Engineered Coated Products picket line and prevent scabs from crossing the line, says the president of the Ontario Federation of Labour.

“After two years it s pretty clear the company isn t going to come back to the bargaining table”, Sid Ryan said Monday. “Why would they when they can continue to bring scabs across the picket line day in and day out.”

“We need to raise the temperature there and stop scabs from crossing the line. ”

He made the comments at a labour summit held at the Brantford and District Labour Centre on Monday. The summit brought in union leaders and labour activities from across Ontario and was held in support of the striking workers of Engineered Coated Products (ECP) in Brantford.

The workers marked their second anniversary on the picket line on Monday.

Speaking during formal open session and in a later interview, Ryan said anti-scab legislation would bring balance to the bargaining process.

If there s a labour dispute, both sides should suffer. That s what brings them back to the table to negotiate an agreement, Ryan said. But as soon as the scales are tipped in favour of one side or the other, the process breaks down and you end up with prolonged disputes.

The province had anti-scab legislation under the NDP government of Bob Rae but the legislation was scrapped under the Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris.

Lobbying efforts to bring such legislation back since the liberals took over under Premier Dalton McGuinty have not met with any success.

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Negotiations for a new labour contract at a well-known candy manufacturer in St. John’s have become anything but sweet.

Talks with Purity Factories Ltd. have broken off in a dispute over wages, the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees said.

NAPE is organizing a strike vote, president Carol Furlong said.

“We’ve been to the bargaining table, we’ve been to conciliation and at this stage now we have no recourse but to go back to our membership for a vote,” she said.

“But the membership are clearly expressing their disappointment that the employer is not recognizing the contribution they’re making to this local industry.”

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A spokesman for the United Steelworkers Union says he’s not surprised by Vale print ads criticising the union’s role in the Voisey’s Bay strike. The ad outlines several financial proposals, and says the union doesn’t understand the math involved. But Boyd Bussey says one of the company’s tactics since the beginning of negotiations has been to misrepresent the facts instead of returning to the bargaining table. He says his math is dead on, and Vale’s math is wrong. He says the company needs to give up this kind of tactic. He says it’s intimidation, and everytime the union makes statements in the press, Vale charges the union. He says they are making the union spend its money and are trying to bust it, instead of coming to the table and negotiating a fair deal.

The strike has been ongoing for more than a year, and Bussey says there is no end in sight. He says he’s asked Danny Williams to get involved. He says Williams is supposed to be looking at alternatives and getting back to the union. He says to this date, the company has not shown any interest in returning to the bargaining table.

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A long-running labour dispute at the Voisey’s Bay nickel mine in northern Labrador has spilled over into the courts.

Darren Cove, president of the United Steelworkers local at Voisey’s Bay, said he was served Monday with documents in a civil lawsuit.

Cove said a statement of claim filed by Vale alleges that Cove defamed the company when he recently said it was treating its workers like second-class citizens.

About 200 Steelworkers members in Labrador have been off the job since early August in 2009, in a strike over wages and benefits.

Cove said lawyers for the Steelworkers have told him they have never before seen an employer use such a tactic in a labour dispute.

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Representatives for United Steelworkers and Vale Ltd. met Friday to discuss the union’s complaint that contractors are doing work that 18 laid-off Steelworkers could be doing.

USW staff representative Myles Sullivan said the parties are trying to reach a resolution about the use of contractors as operations at the nickel company begin to return to normal after an almost year-long strike.

About 2,700 members of USW Local 6500 are back to work six weeks after they approved a new five-year collective agreement with the nickel company based in Brazil.

Vale spokeswoman Angie Robson said all employees except the 18 workers laid off are back on the job and all of Vale’s Sudbury plants are on their way to ramping up to full production.

Both furnaces have been fired up at the Copper Cliff Smelter Complex, and Vale is predicting it will return to full production in Sudbury by the end of September.

But Sullivan said life has not returned to normal for his 18 members who were told just after the strike ended that they no longer had jobs.

Tensions are also running high in many workplaces as Steelworkers off the job for more than a year, in some instances, reclaim their places in the company.

Sullivan said a “high volume” of grievances has been filed by the union on behalf of members in the six weeks since the new contract was accepted and Steelworkers began returning to work.

Under the terms of the return-to-work protocol signed by the two sides, Vale had six weeks to call Steelworkers back to their jobs.

Grievances have been filed relating to a number of issues, said Sullivan — such as discipline, hours of work, shift schedules and paid lunches.

In some cases, union members have complained that personal belongings such as tools and gear was missing when they returned to their operations.

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Locked out Sears workers will be leafleting consumers outside the retailer’s flagship store at Yonge and Dundas Streets at 10 a.m. Saturday, August 21.

The workers are protesting Sears’ refusal to negotiate and its demand for a new contract allowing it to impose unilateral cuts to benefits, working conditions and wages.

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Thunder Bay Transit employees will soon find themselves in a legal strike position now that contract negotiations with the city have stalled.

Charlie Brown, president of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 966, said the union filed for a no-board report after talks broke down Thursday morning.

The union will be legally entitled to take some sort of job action – for example, a strike or work-to-rule campaign – 17 days after the province receives the report. The city would be in a legal position to lock out the workers.

“We‘re not talking money at all at this point in time,” he said in an interview. “We‘re looking at a number of concessions that the city‘s asking our bargaining group for. We‘re looking at a reduction in certain areas of our benefit plan, which we find unacceptable. They‘re looking to increase to an unlimited number of part-time workforce for drivers, which we think is going to erode the full-time workforce.”

Thursday morning‘s negotiation meeting lasted about 10 minutes, Brown said.

“We‘ve been in negotiations for almost a year-and-a-half now,” he said. “We‘ve been at the table 16 times, and what was presented on the table from both parties on the first day is still on the table today.”

A strike vote is to be held Aug. 29, Brown said.

Assuming nothing is settled before the union is in a legal strike position, Brown said the union does have a plan.

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Prince George, B.C. -  The City of Quesnel has moved one step closer to a threatened lock-out of its municipal workers, following a ruling from the Labour Relations Board.

The LRB has granted the city’s request for an essential services order covering 114 CUPE Local 1050 members.  Talks between the two sides broke off back on May 26th and the workers have been without a contract since the end of June.

CUPE Local 1050 President, Dan Weiman, says the union has now applied for a mediator to step in and settle the dispute.  Weiman says, “We are so close (to an agreement), it’s insane that the City is willing to disrupt services to residents.”

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The CAW is calling for the Ontario government to intervene in the more than year-long stand-off between the union and heavy truck manufacturer Navistar Corporation, after talks today failed to make any progress.

The CAW called the meeting with Navistar in an attempt to resolve the temporary closure of the plant and explore ways to maximize production at the facility, but the discussions failed to produce any resolutions.

The company did not provide any plans for the future of the facility but has pledged to provide a detailed and formal response within two weeks.

“Navistar Corporation has to understand that to manage change in a workplace it must be done in conjunction with the workers. Those who are affected by these changes must be treated with respect and dignity,” said CAW President Ken Lewenza, following the meeting.

“It is unconscionable that this corporation is allowed to send the historic production, supported by Ontario and Canadian tax dollars, to a foreign country like Mexico. The meeting today and all the meetings to this point have been extremely frustrating and now we will wait for the corporation’s response within the next two weeks.”

“This situation cannot be resolved through collective bargaining and requires significant intervention by the government.”

Navistar temporarily closed the facility in June 2009, laying off its entire workforce after a breakdown in negotiations between the two sides.

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Construction workers across Quebec have launched a series of rotating job actions in an attempt to erase roadblocks that are stalling contract negotiations.

Members of the Union Alliance met Wednesday morning to discuss the state of negotiations, and they say it is not going well.

Talks between the Alliance and the Association de la construction du Quebec (ACQ) began eight months ago, and despite the aid of mediators and conciliators they have stalled.

Until they get back on track, the Alliance is advising workers to take all their mandated breaks and to refuse overtime.

Hostile negotiations

The ACQ wants to end what it calls ‘unproductive payments’ such as a bonus paid to employees who show up to work, saying such payments have no place for employees working in the industrial sector.

Alliance representative Donald Fortin says “employers are demanding an end to double-time overtime pay, and want it replaced with time and a half.”

“I have never seen such a hostile attitude at the negotiating table,” said Fortin.

The ACQ says it has offered workers raises of 1 per cent, 1 per cent and 2 per cent over the next three years.

Eric Cherbaka of the Quebec Home Builders’ Association said the offer in the residential sector is generous.

“We offered over 9 per cent over three years, health benefits and salary,” he said.

The Alliance wants to see employees compensated when they have to use their own vehicle to travel between multiple job sites in one day.

It would also like the contract to be retroactive, since employees have been without an agreement for the past four months.

The Alliance said on Tuesday that if no progress is made by the end of the month, 146,000 construction workers in Quebec could begin a general strike on August 31.

It will be the first general strike since the disruption in the early 70s during the building of the Olympic Stadium.

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