
WHEN TRUDEAU SHOWS UP AT THE WORKERS' CONVENTION
By Wael Afifi
With more than 310,000 members, Unifor isn’t just Canada’s largest private sector union, but it is also one of 15 bargaining agents that represent federal employees in their negotiations with the Treasury Board. Air traffic controllers, radio operators and workers in non-supervisory printing services are proud members of Unifor and are also part and parcel of the federal public service.
Thus it was surprising – at least for those of us with close ties to federal workers – to see that Justin Trudeau, the big boss of the Federal Public Service, was scheduled to appear as a keynote speaker at the second Unifor Convention held August 22-26 in Ottawa. Read more!
In the early nineties, two TV stations (CKY\CKND) in Winnipeg, Manitoba locked out their workers. Both of these lockouts would start lengthy disputes – rare for the Canadian broadcasting industry.
The two lockouts demonstrate that while workers in the Canadian broadcasting industry face similar issues as workers in other industries (wages, benefits, working conditions), the industry itself affects tactics that labour can use. Read more!
Recycling is supposed to be a good thing, so when the federal Liberals quietly announced that “asset recycling” would be part of their strategy for meeting their much-ballyhooed infrastructure promises, not many eyebrows were raised. They should have been. Asset recycling is an obscure code word for selling our public goods for private profit. It’s privatization by another name. Read more!
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