QUEBEC – Workers at a Quebec City mill owned by White Birch Paper Co. have rejected a company offer by a 91 per cent margin.

Mill operations have been suspended since November and White Birch had said it would close permanently unless the company significantly lowered salary, pension benefits and other costs.

The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union says the rejected offer included a demand that the workers accept a 21 per cent pay cut.

But union vice-president Renaud Gagne says it was the pension proposals that caused the most dissatisfaction.

He says workers aged over 55 would have 45 per cent of the value of their pension and younger employees would lose 65 per cent.

Gagne says the union seek a special intervention Thursday through the Ministry of Labour to bring the employer back to the bargaining table.

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Union members in Windsor-Essex are planning a bus trip to London later this month in a show of support for locked-out Electro Motive Diesel employees.

They’re answering a call from the Windsor and District Labour Council to join a rally on the picket line.

The day of action against Caterpillar, which owns the locomotive plant, is expected to be massive and draw union members from across Ontario.

Caterpillar is demanding its unionized employees, represented by the CAW, accept a pay cut of more than 50 per cent as part of a new collective bargaining agreement. The company also wants to implement reductions to benefits and pensions.

Chris Taylor, vice president of the local labour council, worries other Canadian employees could be faced with similar demands.

“When you have a corporation the likes of Caterpillar that can come into our country, buy up our businesses, making billions of dollars and then turn around and demand that workers settle for half of their wages, half of their benefits, half of pensions, that’s not something that we can stand for,” Taylor said.

So far, there are plans for five buses to head from Windsor to the rally on Jan. 21.

The 425 employees in London have been locked out since New Year’s Day.

“This is about taking on unions and taking on labour,” Taylor said. “It’s a fight that we’re absolutely up for, and we’re not going to back down from.”

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On a night members of city councillors often behaved like kids on the schoolyard, they found common ground in their unanimous support for the locked out workers at Electro-Motive Canada.

During their meeting on Tuesday (Jan. 10), councillors voted 13-0 to support motions tabled by Ward 14 Councillor Sandy White and Ward 3 Councillor Joe Swan. White’s motion called on the federal and provincial governments to get involved in the dispute while Swan’s would urge EMC and its unionized workers to return to the bargaining table with the help of a provincial mediator while further supporting the needs of those on the picket line.

Prior to debate on the two motions, Mayor Joe Fontana said he has been in daily contact with both officials from Caterpillar, as well as Ken Lewenza, national president of the Canadian Auto Worker (CAW). The mayor, who once sat as the federal Minister of Labour, said he respected the collective bargaining process, but that the two sides need to get back to the negotiating table.

Fontana said London residents have supported the plant, no matter the ownership at the time, for over 62 years. And Caterpillar should not ignore that support.

“Cheap labour is not the answer to creating and building good quality locomotives or anything else,” Fontana said. “When two parties sit down together, understand what they both have to offer, there is no doubt in my mind there is an agreement that is possible.”

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Talks are continuing between Air Canada and its pilots on a new contract after a tentative agreement was overwhelmingly rejected last spring.

The Air Canada Pilots Association was caught off guard last October when the airline files a notice of dispute and asked Labour Minister Lisa Raitt to appoint a conciliator, essentially starting the clock on a possible strike or lockout.

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The leader of Toronto Hydro’s unionized workers says he’ll fight any move to lay off his members at the city-owned utility.

Toronto Hydro has axed contractors employing between 700 and 1,000 workers after receiving a stinging rebuke from the Ontario Energy Board.

And the company says that hundreds of permanent staffers – as much as 20 per cent of its workforce of 1,700 – will be told soon that their jobs, too, will disappear.

John Camilleri, who heads CUPE Local One at Toronto Hydro, said Wednesday that’s not acceptable.

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With their strike now in its 12th week, striking York Region Transit workers are picketing in front of at least three facilities Tuesday.

Members of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1587 are holding up vehicles at two Miller Transit facilities – the company’s Woodbine Avenue headquarters in Markham and a nearby property just south of Highway 407.

In addition to holding up Miller Transit vehicles as they attempt to exit the properties, striking workers will be handing out pro-union flyers to commuters on Woodbine Avenue.

Members of ATU Local 113 continue to picket at a Veolia Transportation garage at Keele Street and Bowes Road.

Additional pickets may be set up at transit stations in York Region.

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Electro-Motive Canada (EMC) has handed out severance packages to some non-unionized workers at the Oxford Street plant.

Fleishman-Hillard, a public relations firm representing Caterpillar, a subsidiary group of EMC, issued a news release Sunday (Jan. 9) about the layoffs.

“EMC has made an adjustment in the salaried workforce at its London plant, in keeping with the facility’s needs,” the statement said. “The fewer than 20 operational and administrative workers involved will receive separation payments that are commensurate with their length of service, as well as benefits.”

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Canadians knew as they headed into 2012 that the job outlook was bleak, but the lockout of 465 workers at a diesel plant in London sets a grim new standard.

On New Year’s Eve, Electro-Motive, owned by the U.S. industrial giant Caterpillar, issued a final take-it-or-leave-it offer — a 50 per cent wage cut, no cost-of-living adjustment and a new co-payment for health insurance. The union said no. On New Year’s Day, it locked them out.

“I don’t recall it ever happening where a company in that situation came at workers to cut their wages in half,” said Mike Moffat, a professor of labour at the Ivey School of Business, part of the University of Western Ontario.

The company’s “bargaining” tactics weren’t the only thing that differentiated the first labour showdown of 2012 from past disputes.

The union representing the workers, the Canadian Auto Workers, was essentially powerless. “How do we find some space to negotiate?” asked president Ken Lewenza, predicting a long, drawn-out struggle.

Caterpillar, based in Illinois, didn’t bother to answer questions. It used a Toronto-based PR agency to give the company line.

The federal government, which approved the sale of the London company (then known as Progress Rail) to Caterpillar in 2010, washed its hands of the matter. A spokesman for Industry Minister Christian Paradis said the minister would not intervene because “these disputes are between a private company and a union.”

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The bus strike in York Region will continue indefinitely after York Region’s striking transit workers voted 83 per cent to reject Miller Transit’s latest contract offer on Friday.

Ninety-two per cent of members voted.

“There can now be not the slightest doubt that the membership is in full support of the union and its bargaining committee,” said Ray Doyle, president of ATU Local 1587.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board ordered the unions representing Miller Transit and Veolia Transportation workers to present the latest offers to their members. The Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) locals had initially rejected the deals.

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About 60 unionized Salvation Army workers went on strike in Ottawa on Friday, but the charitable organization has assured the homeless they will not be left in the cold.

The strike by members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada will not affect those who frequent the Booth Centre, a homeless shelter at 171 George Street that houses about 150 homeless men every night, according to Michael Maidment, a Salvation Army spokesman in Ottawa.

“We will stay open and we will do that with our existing staff and management team,” Maidment said. “Of course, the safety and concern of those we serve is of paramount importance.”

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