By Ken Lewenza and Dave Coles
May 30 will be a date to remember. It was the day thousands tuned in – some in person, many online – to find out the long-awaited name of our new union.
Changing Names for Changing Times
Lord Selkirk SD School Bus Drivers Join 191
Board members Art Crane, LSSD, (far left) and James Stapleton, LGM, (centre) are sworn in by 191 president Aldo SantinLocal 191 is pleased to announce that the bus drivers from the Lord Selkirk School Division have joined the Local.
New Union Gets New Name & Logo
Earlier today, the new name and logo were revealed — Unifor.
Click here to see the poster.
This was the news release issued May 30:
TORONTO – The new Canadian union being formed by the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) and the Canadian Auto Workers union (CAW) will be named Unifor. The name and logo were unveiled today during a packed press conference of 200 local leaders, members, community supporters and allies.
Threat to Labour in Saskatchewan
The following article outlines looming changes to labour law in Saskatchewan which threatens all workers there — and could become the model for assaults on labour across the country. The piece was written by Andrew Stevens, a faculty members at the University of Regina and co-editor of rankandfile.ca, where it originally appeared. It is reprinted here with permission.
Sweeping changes to Saskatchewan’s labour relations and employment standards legislation are on the verge of being passed. Bill 85, the Saskatchewan Employment Act, will dramatically transform the laws governing trade unions and industrial relations in the province. The Saskatchewan Party government, led by Premier Brad Wall, insists that the changes will simply modernize and simplify a dozen pieces of existing legislation into a single, omnibus employment act. But workers and trade unions are justified in thinking otherwise. In 1998, Saskatchewan’s current Minister of the Economy, Bill Boyd, unsuccessfully attempted to pass Bill 218, “An Act respecting the Right to Work (RTW) in the Province of Saskatchewan”, while the Sask Party was in opposition. In fact, debates over right-to-work style reforms and union financial transparency have already been contested in Saskatchewan as Bill 85 developed. But why is Saskatchewan so important in the national context?
New Union Update
The new name and logo of the New Union will be announced May 30.
Attached here is a pdf of a slide show update presented recently at the Fort Garry Hotel to area CEP and CAW locals.
Local union leaders and activists from the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union (CEP) have been gathering in regional meetings to hear details of the plan to create a new union at a founding convention in Toronto this Labour Day weekend.
Local 191 Free Press Members Approve New Contracts
The employees at the Winnipeg Free Press and the carrier force represented by CEP Local 191 voted in favour of a new five-year deal on Sunday that is effective July 1, 2013.
Local 191 & Free Press Reach Tentative Agreement
A tentative agreement was reached Tuesday night between Local 191 and the Winnipeg Free Press.
Members of the bargaining committee are unanimously recommending acceptance to both inside workers and the carriers.
The deals on behalf of 450 inside workers and 460 carriers were reached after 10 days of bargaining. Details of the agreements will not be disclosed publicly until they have been presented to members at a ratication meeting April 14 at Canad Inns Garden City (Details below).
This marks the first time in bargaining at the Free Press where a tentative deal has been reached prior to the contract expiration. The collective agreements representing carriers and inside workers expire June 30.
Local 191 will not comment until after the ratification vote.
Winnipeg Free Press RATIFICATION VOTE
WHEN: Sunday, April 14
WHERE: Canad Inns Garden City, 2100 McPhillips St., at Jefferson Ave.
TIME: Inside Workers, 11 a.m.; Carriers 1:30 p.m.
No advance or proxy voting. You must attend to vote on ratification.
Nine Sun Media units ratify central deal on wages, benefits and job security
4-Year Deal: 0,1,1.5 & 1.5
Nine Sun Media workplaces have ratified an historic deal negotiated for the first time at a central table. A tentative deal was reached Feb.14 and ratified at votes across Ontario over the last week of February and the first week of March. The central deal covered wages, benefits and job security issues.
Unions Are Under Attack
By Cynthia Turner
Secretary Treasurer, CEP Local 191
Where would Canadian workers be without unions? Would we have an 8 hour workday? Would we have Workers Compensation? Would we get time and a half for over time? Would we have paid holidays? Would we have a national Pension Plan? These are things that are standard for all Canadians, not just unionized workers but they came about through the efforts of Canadian unions. Unions lobbied governments to make sure that Canada was a safe and fair-minded place to live.
So where did the money come from to make sure that these things happened? Where did the money come from to make sure that your employers adhered to the collective agreements we have fought for? It came from our union dues, plain and simple. And now that is under attack. Pierre Poilievre, the Federal Conservative MP for Nepean-Carleton, has unleashed a movement to change the rules regarding the payment of union dues. The Federal Government is trying to abolish the Rand Formula.
Supreme Court decision latest attack on pensioners
CEP national president Dave Coles has commented on the recent Supreme Court decision on pension plans caught in bankruptcy proceedings. The news release is reprinted below. Also, Brother Coles penned an opinion piece that was recently printed in newspapers across the country.
For immediate release February 6, 2013
OTTAWA — “Retirees have once again been told to go to the back of the line so that banks and hedge funds can collect their winnings,” says Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union President Dave Coles.
“It’s almost criminal that Canada’s bankruptcy laws continue to force pensioners into poverty,” says Coles, referring to the recent Supreme Court decision that 170 former employees of Indalex Limited would be stripped of the $6.7 million to cover their pensions that had been awarded earlier by the Ontario Court of Appeal.