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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CAW members will be demonstrating outside long term care provider Extendicare’s head office tomorrow, just north of Toronto, protesting the company’s refusal to negotiate a fair settlement.

The company broke off talks with the union on April 26 and workers have been without a contract since March 31. The demonstration is just one in a series of pickets organized by the union since talks ground to a halt.

“Our members are frustrated that this multi-million dollar company, a for-profit long term care home provider, is now crying poor when it comes time to compensate its staff,” said CAW President Ken Lewenza.

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Ontario Federation of Labour president Sid Ryan will be in Brantford on Monday to participate in a labour summit organized in support of striking ECP workers.

The workers will be marking their second anniversary on the picket line on Monday.

Billed as an anti-scab summit, the event will include representatives from the Canadian Labour Congress, CUPE Ontario as well as local municipal leaders and mayoral candidates. It is being organized by the Brantford and District Labour Council and is being held at the labour centre on Clarence Street.

Organizers say the event will begin with an open session from 9:30 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. followed by a press conference for local media. Labour leaders will then meet in a closed session to develop an action plan and talk about an afternoon rally at the ECP picket line.

Speakers at the rally include Ryan, Marie Clarke Walker, a Canadian Labour Congress vice-president, Fred Hahn, president of CUPE Ontario and Hamilton Mountain MP Chris Charlton. The event will also include a barbecue sponsored by the Hamilton Steelworkers Area Council.

Workers at ECP on Elgin Street, Brantford have been on strike since Aug. 23, 2008. The approximately 80 workers are represented by the United Steelworkers Local 1-500 and they walked off the job after the company demanded wage concessions and cuts to benefits and pension plans.

Union officials have said the company had demanded wage concessions of about 25 per cent and said ECP rejected a proposal from the workers which would see them take a 12 per cent cut in wages. Company officials have said wage concessions and rollbacks were necessary to keep the Brantford plant viable but haven’t publicly stated a figure.

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The first face-to-face meeting in more than a year between former Navistar Chatham workers and company executives is on tap for Thursday.

The session, involving officials of CAW Local 127 – which represents factory workers and Local 35 – representing office workers – will be held in Windsor.

A plan tabled last year by the company to greatly downsize operations at the Richmond Street truck plant was flatly rejected by the CAW.

Since the old contract expired at the end of June last year the plant has sat idled. In its heyday in the late 1990s it employed more than 2,200 workers.

CAW representatives are hopeful tomorrow’s meeting will shed new light on the company’s plans for the Chatham facility.

Company spokesman Roy Wiley has said repeatedly the company is willing to talk provided the talks are productive.

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