The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.63/No.14           April 12, 1999 
 
 
Toronto School Support Staff Returns to Work  
This column is devoted to reporting the resistance by working people to the employers' assault on their living standards, working conditions, and unions.

We invite you to contribute short items to this column as a way for other fighting workers around the world to read about and learn from these important struggles. Jot down a few lines about what is happening in your union, at your workplace, or other workplaces in your area, including interesting political discussions.

TORONTO - Some 14,000 members of Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4400 in Toronto ratified a new contract March 20. CUPE members struck February 27 over wages and working conditions.

Picket lines were taken down after union officials announced a tentative agreement March 13. A week later more than 4,000 union members gathered for a meeting and voted 93 percent in favor. Strikers' jobs include everything from janitorial and secretarial work to educational assistance and language or music instruction.

Everyone received a 3 percent lump-sum signing bonus. Educational and physical support staff will receive a 1 percent raise on Jan. 1, 2000. There are to be no layoffs or reduction in hours for educational or physical support staff until Dec. 31, 2000.

As he came out of the ratification meeting, caretaker Andrew McEwan said, "I think the strike made people aware of how much we do in the schools." He was "very pleased" with the contract, since some janitorial jobs in his region of the city have been contracted out for the past 22 years.

A heritage languages instructor said job losses would continue in her sector, and wages remained unchanged. Over the next two years, $250 million (Can$1 = US$0.66) is slated to be cut from Toronto schools. Students and strikers report being warmly welcomed by teachers upon their return to school. "Now I know my cafeteria ladies by name,"said student Rachel Dhawan, who had walked the picket line.

Hertz car rental workers strike over wages, dignity
NEWARK, New Jersey - "They said they could train monkeys to do our jobs in 10 minutes," said Steve Williams, a Hertz rental car worker on strike since March 19. "We're going to stay out as long as it takes."

More than 100 Teamsters, including cleaners, mechanics, and reservation agents, walked off the job located at Newark International Airport after voting down the second contract offer by Hertz. Workers were especially incensed at being compared to monkeys. Several workers had taken the blank side of the official union placards and drawn monkeys along with slogans protesting this affront on their dignity.

The company offered a 50-cent an hour raise per year. But workers feel they deserve more. "Hertz, number one in profits, lowest in wages," Williams explained to travelers looking to rent cars. Unionists first voted down the company's proposed offer 99-1. Hertz then came back with a little better offer, which was recommended by the union officialdom. Workers voted this proposal down too, 86-9.

Strikers report that only one worker has crossed the picket line, but Hertz has brought in management from other locations to keep the operation open.

Canadian Broadcasting strike enters seventh week
TORONTO - The 1,800 technicians and craft workers organized by the Communication, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) are holding strong in their seventh week on strike. CBC is the state-owned radio and television in Canada.

Unionists almost saw their ranks on the picket lines swell with the planned walkout of 3,300 other CBC workers organized by the Canadian Media Guild, but a tentative agreement was reached the same day.

"Our members have sacrificed jobs and money to keep the CBC afloat during government budget cuts for the past 15 years, it is time for that to stop," said Mike Sullivan, national CEP representative. In that period the CBC board of directors, appointed by the federal government, has cut one- third of the jobs and chopped Can$414 million from the budget.

Hector Aviles, a painter, said that while there are now about half the technicians there were 10 years ago, the number of supervisors has increased. "When I was with the CBC in Regina," said Aviles, "in one department there was one worker and three supervisors."

The CEP members are seeking a three-year agreement retroactive to 1998 with catch-up wage increases, improvement in job security, and restriction in outsourcing. They are also opposed to the company's demand for overtime averaging. In the case of CEP workers, the CBC wants to average out the overtime over one week, and in the case of the Guild it was asking for an eight-weeks' overtime averaging. This means, for example, that a Guild worker may be required to work 80 hours a week for four straight weeks, and then not be called in to work for the next four weeks, and get no overtime pay.

So far, CBC has been forced to cancel some programs and scale down others. It has produced scab broadcasts of Hockey Night in Canada by making use of U.S. feeds and supervisory employees doing the technical work.

Strikers at CBC and Hydro Toronto joined each other's pickets lines while Hydo workers were out.

10,000 service workers in British Columbia strike
VANCOUVER - more than 600 striking social service workers organized a spirited rally in downtown Vancouver March 8 - International Women's Day - to launch a province-wide strike. "Today, 150 years ago, women took to the streets, and today were taking to the streets over the same issues.... This strike is over wages and benefits," explained Hospital Employees Union (HEU) representative Mary Leplant. Some 87 percent of the strikers are women, the Vancouver Sun reported.

The four unions involved in the strike - the British Columbia Government Service Employees' Union (BCGEU), the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Health Sciences Association, and HEU - voted 90 percent in favor of the work action.

"Ten thousand social service workers across the province have taken strike action," said Michael Lanier, child-care worker and regional vice president of CUPE. "We've been without a contract since March 31, 1998, and have had no serious offer."

A similar rally was organized in the provincial capital city of Victoria. The vast majority of rally participants were women and young. Eighty-seven percent of social service workers in this province are women, and are paid less than other sectors for doing similar work. We want parity and we want it now," explained Lydia Kenney-Storms, striking social worker and a member of the BCGEU.

The strike has affected day-care centers, preschools, homes for battered women, services for juvenile delinquents, infant development programs, and programs for the developmentally and physically disabled.

On March 9 rallies were organized for other cities across British Columbia including Prince George, Kelowna, Nanaimo, and Nelson.

Katy LeRougetel, a member of United Steelworkers of America (USWA) Local 5338 in Toronto; Kari Sachs, a member of Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, and Seth Galinsky in Newark; Tony Di Felice, a member of the USWA in Toronto; and Ned Dmytryshyn, a member of the International Association of Machinists in Delta, British Columbia, and Aiden Ball in Vancouver contributed to this column.

 
 
 
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