Nearly three years after going on strike, workers at the Engineered Coated Products manufacturing plant in Brantford remain on the picket line.

Approximately 80 workers walked off the job on August 23, 2008 after the company demanded big wage cuts. At the time workers were earning about $21 per hour, and the average worker had been with the company for about 20 years.

Earl Smith, the local chair of United Steelworkers says, “The company wanted 25 per cent across the board, they wanted to do away with our pensions, they wanted a continental shift.”

Read More…

Striking workers have marked their third Christmas on the picket line outside the gates of Engineered Coated Products.

“The last place I wanted to spend Christmas Eve was in this rat-trap trailer,” Steve Hunt, an ECP employee for 35 years, said Thursday.

“But we wanted to give some of the younger guys time with their families during the holidays.”

Read More…

Greg Clarkson says he believes in the fight, but is just months away from losing his house.

Clarkson is one of 84 workers currently on strike at Engineered Coating Products.

He has worked for the local fabrics coating company located on Elgin Street for 15 years. He has been on strike for two.

He has three kids and can’t afford to have them all in organized sports.

“I’m very angry and upset,” Clarkson said on the two-year anniversary of the ECP strike. “It’s hard and the kids suffer because they don’t understand the full scale of what’s going on.

“You work for a company for that many years, it gets bought by an American firm not wanting a union and they’ve threatened us from day one with cuts.”

The U.S.-owned firm Intertape Polymer Group that bought ECP in 2005 wants to start negotiating cuts to workers’ wages and benefits at 25 per cent.

In 2009, the union representing Clarkson and his co-workers counter-offered with a package that offered rollbacks, that included a 12.5 per cent wage reduction.

Clarkson said it would be possible for him to just get another job, but he said it is unlikely he would make more than minimum wage.

Clarkson and other workers on the ECP picket line, told Brant News on Monday they are making $225 a week, while the two-year-old strike drags on.

“I believe in the fight because it’s not just about me,” Clarkson said. “This is happening everywhere and Brantford has lost a lot of good companies.”

Clarkson said he’s very concerned with the number of good-paying jobs Brantford has lost.

“I think someone in government should be putting a stop to this,” Clarkson said. “The temp workers working at our jobs in there are all from Hamilton and Ancaster, so the wages are not staying in Brantford.”

Read More…

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.

Read More…

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.

Read More…

614 days.

On a makeshift wooden sign affixed to a post, striking workers at Engineered Coated Products keep a tally of the number of days they’ve been off the job.

For 20 months, the workers, initially about 80 and now an estimated 60, have been camped outside the Elgin Street company as busloads of replacement workers are brought in daily to keep the packaging plant operational.

There has been no negotiation between the workers, represented by the United Steelworkers union, and the company since last July when the two sides met with a government conciliator.

And it seems unlikely they will be talking any time soon.

“It takes a toll,” admitted Rick Willson, a 33-year employee at ECP. “There’s nobody here to help.”

The strike began on Aug. 23, 2008 when Saul Marques, secretary- treasurer for United Steelworkers, Local 1-500, said the company demanded workers take a 25% wage cut, along with a cut in benefits and changes to their pension plan. The company, said Marques, also wanted to implement “continental” 12-hour shifts that would have resulted in job losses.

The workers, who earn between $17 and $23 an hour, had offered to take a 12% pay cut and other concessions in a three-year deal.

“The company wants us to agree to a 25% wage decrease or they won’t even talk,” said Marques. “It’s blackmail. Collective bargaining is supposed to be an exchange of facts. They’ve never provided us with any information.

“It’s been long enough. It’s time for the company to tell us their intent.”

ECP is part of the Intertape Polymer Group, which operates 10 plants in North America. The company bought the Brantford plant several years ago.

Read More…