The negotiating committee for United Steelworkers Local 2724, representing more than 600 salaried supervisory and technical personnel inside Essar Steel Algoma Inc., is seeking strike authorization from its membership less than a month prior to the expiration of its three-year contract.

The local will conclude two days of special membership meetings Tuesday at the Days Inn.

The update meeting is scheduled to begin at noon, with strike authorization voting from 6 a.m. through 8 p.m. at 2724’s Days Inn office, while Monday evening’s meeting and vote was at the Marconi Hall.

A strike authorization vote is essentially a show of membership solidarity for its bargaining committee and puts the local in a legal strike position, if necessary, at the expiration of its contract.

Three-year contracts between the Sault Ste. Marie steel maker and its two unions, including Local 2251, representing more than 2,500 hourly production, maintenance, service and clerical employees, and Local 2724, expire at 12:01 a.m. Aug. 1.

As of Monday afternoon, the 2251 negotiating team had not yet called on its membership for strike authorization, but has called special membership meetings for Wednesday, at 9 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. at the Great Northern Hotel and Conference Centre, to discuss the company’s proposed asset integrity proposal in the event of a labour disruption.

The asset integrity proposal, according to Mike Da Prat, president of Local 2251, relates to staffing in such areas as “the coke oven batteries and other ancillary operations that need to be maintained and kept operating in the event of a labour disruption.”

During the last negotiations, in 2007, the company trained its more than 100 non-union personnel and hired contract workers to augment its non-union people, on operating tasks such as the coke ovens, utilities and material handling, as well as fire and flood patrolling throughout the steelworks.

While Da Prat says negotiations, which began with an exchange of proposals more than a month ago, on June 1, are “plodding along” the local’s website is reporting that 2251 submitted its monetary proposal to the company a week ago, on June 28.

Monetary proposals are traditionally one of the last items of discussion in the negotiating process.

“We are still awaiting the company’s response … I wouldn’t read too much into the proposal at this stage, there are still outstanding issues on the table,” said Da Prat.

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When Brigida Ruiz opened the door to a “green” hotel room that hadn’t been cleaned for several days, she says her heart sank at the sight of the dusty, stained carpet.

“Can you imagine how a room gets after one week without cleaning service?” says Ruiz, who has worked as a hotel-room attendant for 18 years at the Sheraton Centre Toronto.

“It’s dirty, filthy. Really stinky.”

Ruiz says it took her longer to clean the room and she used more electricity, more water and more cleaning products than she normally would — hardly a save-the-planet exercise, she argues.

But that’s exactly what the U.S.-based Starwood Hotels chain is touting with its “Make a Green Choice” program, which invites guests to “conserve natural resources” by declining daily housekeeping in return for 500 loyalty points or $5 in food and beverage vouchers a day.

The green initiative, rolled out last summer in 140 Starwood hotels across North America — including at least five properties in Metro Vancouver — has hotel workers and their union seeing red.

They say the program is a bogus green plan that does nothing for the environment. But it does result in reduced shifts and more work for housekeeping staff, says Michelle Travis of Unite Here Local 40.

The union represents about 8,000 hospitality workers in B.C., including Starwood’s Westin Bayshore in Coal Harbour and the Sheraton Vancouver Airport in Richmond.

“This has been a real problem for housekeepers for the hotels,” says Travis.

“It’s just a cost-cutting measure on the part of the hotel employer.”

The Westin Bayshore defended the “Make a Green Choice” program in a statement emailed to The Province.

The program helps “hotels save energy and reduce water and chemical use” and has saved more than 31 million litres of water, 38,000 kilowatts of electricity and 42,000 litres of chemicals across the Starwood chain in its first six months, the statement said.

An estimated 4.5 to five per cent of guests at the Bayshore avail themselves of the program, compared to eight per cent companywide, says hotel spokesman Mitchell Fawcett.

The Bayshore was unable to say exactly how much water and electricity it has saved, Fawcett says.

“Since it’s been such a short time, we’re still assembling property statistics and don’t have a full tally we can share at this point,” he says.

One room attendant at the Bayshore, who asked that her identity not be published for fear of repercussions in the workplace, says she doesn’t see how the program — dubbed the “fake green-card program” by critics — is environmentally friendly.

“It doesn’t save the environment. But it’s bad for us, because we are losing hours and there’s more work,” she told The Province.

If 45 rooms opt out of housekeeping in a day, three staff members lose their shifts, says the 18-year employee.

But by the time workers finally clean a “green” room, the rooms are messier, the garbage stinkier and the towels are “like a mountain,” she says.

They also take longer to clean, forcing workers to rush the job in order to meet their daily quota, she says.

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Frustrated by a lack of action at the bargaining table during a strike in its 16th week, miners from CBM/St. Marys cement manufacturing plant in Bowmanville brought their protest to the company’s Windsor location on Tuesday.

Members of CAW Local 222 — backed by about a dozen local union officials and supporters — slowed cement trucks throughout the day from entering St. Marys’ riverfront Russell Street plant location on the city’s west end for 15 minutes each.

The company is one of Canada’s largest quarry, gravel and cement operations. Almost 90 workers in Bowmanville have been without a contract since Jan. 31 and have been fighting changes to their pension plan.

There have been no talks since the strike started in mid-March. Local St. Marys employees are Teamsters members and not part of the strike.

“What we are hoping to do is get the company’s attention,” said Enzo Vizza, a member of the bargaining committee in Bowmanville who was leading the rally in Windsor. “We don’t want a raise and just hold the contract the way it is.”

Problems with the company started when it was purchased about six years ago by a corporation based in San Paolo, Brazil, Vizza said.

The pension plan of the workers has been defined, so what they were expecting to receive is predetermined. But the corporation is seeking changes that could bump the current prospect of receiving $44,000 annually in retirement to as low as $7,900, Vizza said.

“They say it’s a cultural change and they are going to change the way to do business here,” he said. “We want people across the province to know there are 87 families in real jeopardy in Bowmanville as a result of this foreign company.”

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Navistar workers have made a significant impact and should play a role in the future, said a labour delegation to Chatham- Kent council on Monday.

More than 150 people took part in a march from Canadian Auto Workers headquarters to the Civic Centre to raise awareness on the idled truck-making facility.

Aaron Neaves, CAW Local 127 president, said a grassroots effort is needed to lobby senior levels of government to get involved.

“The Navistar plant is important,” he said. “Too important to let slip away.”

He said the economy is on the upswing with a higher demand projected for heavy-duty trucks.

“We need to ensure our plant and our community take part in this recovery,” he said.

In the 1990s, the Richmond Street facility employed more than 2,000 workers. The plant was idled at the end of June last year when the last contract expired.

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Frustrated by a lack of action at the bargaining table during a strike in its 16th week, miners from CBM/St. Marys cement manufacturing plant in Bowmanville brought their protest to the company’s Windsor location on Tuesday.

Members of CAW Local 222 — backed by about a dozen local union officials and supporters — slowed cement trucks throughout the day from entering St. Marys’ riverfront Russell Street plant location on the city’s west end for 15 minutes each.

The company is one of Canada’s largest quarry, gravel and cement operations. Almost 90 workers in Bowmanville have been without a contract since Jan. 31 and have been fighting changes to their pension plan.

There have been no talks since the strike started in mid-March. Local St. Marys employees are Teamsters members and not part of the strike.

“What we are hoping to do is get the company’s attention,” said Enzo Vizza, a member of the bargaining committee in Bowmanville who was leading the rally in Windsor. “We don’t want a raise and just hold the contract the way it is.”

Problems with the company started when it was purchased about six years ago by a corporation based in San Paolo, Brazil, Vizza said.

The pension plan of the workers has been defined, so what they were expecting to receive is predetermined. But the corporation is seeking changes that could bump the current prospect of receiving $44,000 annually in retirement to as low as $7,900, Vizza said.

“They say it’s a cultural change and they are going to change the way to do business here,” he said. “We want people across the province to know there are 87 families in real jeopardy in Bowmanville as a result of this foreign company.”

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KENTVILLE — A group of municipal workers in Nova Scotia has voted in favour of a strike to back contract demands.

The 46 inside and outside workers with the Municipality of the County of Kings are members of CUPE.

CUPE says they’ve given the union a 91 per cent strike mandate.

The union says the outstanding issues include wages, pensions and retirement benefits.

The last contract expired last Oct. 31.

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KENTVILLE — A group of municipal workers in Nova Scotia has voted in favour of a strike to back contract demands.

The 46 inside and outside workers with the Municipality of the County of Kings are members of CUPE.

CUPE says they’ve given the union a 91 per cent strike mandate.

The union says the outstanding issues include wages, pensions and retirement benefits.

The last contract expired last Oct. 31.

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Contract talks between Irving Shipbuilding and workers at East Isle Shipyard in Georgetown, P.E.I., have failed to reach an agreement, leaving the union in a position to hold a strike vote Wednesday.

The two sides have been in negotiations since October 2009. The 115 workers will have to decide whether to strike or to accept Irving’s latest offer, which includes a three per cent raise in each of the next three years.

If they vote against it, they will be in a legal position to strike.

A union spokesperson said the workers want a five per cent raise in each of the next three years.

In a recent letter to the union, Irving said that delays caused by a strike could hurt the company’s reputation.

That, in turn, would hurt its bottom line and its ability to pay its workers.

The letter said the shipyard is “operating in very difficult markets,” because its costs are higher than its international competitors, and demand for and sales of the tugboats it builds are low.

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Contract talks between Irving Shipbuilding and workers at East Isle Shipyard in Georgetown, P.E.I., have failed to reach an agreement, leaving the union in a position to hold a strike vote Wednesday.

The two sides have been in negotiations since October 2009. The 115 workers will have to decide whether to strike or to accept Irving’s latest offer, which includes a three per cent raise in each of the next three years.

If they vote against it, they will be in a legal position to strike.

A union spokesperson said the workers want a five per cent raise in each of the next three years.

In a recent letter to the union, Irving said that delays caused by a strike could hurt the company’s reputation.

That, in turn, would hurt its bottom line and its ability to pay its workers.

The letter said the shipyard is “operating in very difficult markets,” because its costs are higher than its international competitors, and demand for and sales of the tugboats it builds are low.

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TORONTO– As of 6:30 am this morning, hotel workers at the Novotel Toronto Centre have gone on strike just as members of the G20 French delegation arrive at the hotel, which is run by the French company Accor.

“We’re a small group of workers who are just trying to maintain decent jobs with this global giant,” said Rik Hockley, a Banquet Server and member of the bargaining committee at the Novotel Toronto Centre. Approximately 80 workers have walked off the job after hotel management walked away from negotiations on Tuesday without even addressing an offer put on the table by UNITE HERE, the union that represents hotel workers.

“Their shameful conduct in these negotiations is apparent for the world to see, “says Paul Clifford, President of UNITE HERE Local 75. “After sitting on our proposal for a month, they finally tabled their first and only proposal on Tuesday and then walked out the door at 5:00 pm. That is not collective bargaining by anyone’s definition. The labour dispute at this hotel is entirely due to Accor’s heavy handed bungling of negotiations.”

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