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Catalyst files for
Chapter 15 in U.S.
On Tuesday,Catalyst Paper Corp. filed for Chapter 15 protection in a
U.S. court as the paper and newsprint producer
struggled with rising costs of raw materials and poor demand.
Many paper producers that have suffered from increased competition from
Asia and Europe, and falling demand as more advertisers and readers
move online.
Under U.S. bankruptcy laws, Chapter 15 grants a foreign company
protection from creditors looking to seize its assets in the country.
Catalyst said it had entered into a restructuring agreement,
which will have its bondholders taking control of the company
and exchanging debt for equity. The agreement would cut the
company’s debt by $315.4 million Cdn and reduce its cash interest
expenses.
Catalyst will continue to “operate and satisfy” its
obligations to customers, trade creditors, employees and retirees in
the ordinary course of business during the restructuring process.
The company has both assets and liabilities of more than $1
billion. Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded the
company’s rating to “Ca” from “Caa3.”
Catalyst, the largest producer of mechanical printing paper in western
North America, has manufacturing facilities in Port Alberni, Crofton
and Powell River and in Arizona.
CAW Reaches Tentative Agreement
Covering Flight Service
CAW Local 2245, which represents Flight Service
Specialists at Canadian airports, has reached a tentative collective
agreement with Nav Canada yesterday.
CAW Local 2245 represents
750 Flight Service Specialists at 63 airports across Canada, providing
essential advisory services to the aviation community. These Flight
Service Specialists advise pilots on aviation safety issues at airports.
It marks the third time that the CAW and Nav Canada have reached a
collective bargaining agreement without government intervention during
the last year.
"This agreement helps recognize the hard work and dedication our
members provide to the aviation industry," said Derek Yakielashek, CAW
Local 2245 President. Details of the new agreement will be voted on by
the membership in upcoming weeks.
Court
Victory for Toronto Limousine
Drivers
January 18, 2012, 4:00 PM EST
An Ontario Superior Court Judge has dismissed two claims by employer
Aaroport Limousine against CAW Local 252 members paving the way for
first contract arbitration to finally get underway.
Dismissal of the two actions by Justice E.P. Belobaba is a major
victory for these Local 252 members who are airport limousine drivers
in Toronto. The drivers had been locked out by the employer in a bitter
dispute for six months in 2010 to 2011.
CAW Local 252 represents 200 Toronto airport limo drivers who are
employed by McIntosh, Air Cab and Aaroport, all owned by the same
individuals.
More than a year ago Aaroport Limousine brought two claims against
these drivers in Superior Court for recovery of monies the drivers
didn't pay them during the labour dispute, which amounted to more than
$13,000 per member.
The company also sought to terminate the service agreements that form
part of the employment relationship with some of the driver/brokers,
which would have the effect of firing those members.
"During the course of negotiations the company maintained that all of
its financial proposals were contingent upon agreement by the Union
that the members would pay all the "back fees" including "goodwill"
which the company said it lost during the dispute," said Sukhvinder
Johl, CAW National Representative.
Obviously the company's proposal and the two court actions were an
impediment to getting a first agreement, he said. "Now the CAW can move
ahead with the first contract arbitration hearing, which is likely to
commence in April," Johl said.
Liberals
Allow More
Devastation of HEU Members
On January 4th, Chartwell Seniors
Housing announced plans to contract out the jobs of 177
health care workers at Malaspina Gardens retirement home. The HEU
reported the potential layoffs in October, but both sides were under a
news blackout while they discussed how to proceed.
Chartwell, a Mississaugua based company operates more than 200
facilities across Canada. They claim the layoffs are necessary before
they approach VIHA to upgrade the building.
LPNs, care aides and support workers will be laid off in July and can
then re-apply for their old jobs under a new contractor, usually at
much lower rates. Workers at other unionized care facilities
in our area have had their jobs "flipped" up to 5 times at other homes
like Nanaimo Seniors Village and the Lodge on 4th in Ladysmith.
The BC Liberal legislation allows jobs to be contracted out, even
though a contract is in place, with no successorship rights to
represent the employees.
Caregivers have begun dying a strand of hair pink as a silent protest
and the beginning of an awareness campaign to let people knowwhat's
happening, said Heather Arnold, HEU representative.
Liberals attack Union members right to
run for office
Bill
18, opposed by universities’
faculty and staff associations, will not become law—at least for
now.
The
bill to amend numerous
acts related to post-secondary education in BC, was pulled before
second reading by the Christy Clark government. Itwon’t be back up
for discussion until spring
2012.
Five of
the 57 proposed amendments
would affect the University Act and the College and Institutes Act,
allowing universities’ boards of governors to expel elected
faculty, student or staff representatives if approved by a two-thirds
majority.
They
would also bar elected
members from serving as board chairpersons and prohibit faculty or
staff representatives from sitting in executive positions of
organizations involving collective bargaining or dispute resolution
with the university.
President
Cindy Oliver of the
Federation of Post-Secondary Educators (FPSE) said in a press
release that they would be willing to fight the bill all the
way
to the Supreme Court if necessary. "If this
legislation passes,
Christy Clark will effectively be dictating to our members who they
can and can’t elect as their representative on the Board of
Governors,” she wrote. “It is more than just an affront to our
democratic rights; it’s a full-on attack of our freedom of
association rights that are spelled out in the Charter.”
CUPW
Wins Supreme Court Decision to
Delay Arbitration

Nanaimo CUPW Members Picket Terminal Ave Post Office in June
Halifax, Vancouver Win Shipbuilding
Contracts Despite BC Gov't Policies
This afternoon the Federal Government awarded new
shipbuilding contracts to just two areas, Halifax and Vancouver. Irving
Shipbuilding’s Halifax Yard wins the right to build $25-billion of
combat vessels, including frigates, destroyers and patrol ships, while
Seaspan Marine’s Vancouver Yard has secured dibs on $8-billion of
non-combat vessels, including the polar-class Diefenbaker icebreaker.
The shipbuilding will create an estimated 15,000 jobs.
Awarding three decades of government shipbuilding
work to just two yards – one in Halifax and one in Vancouver – is seen
as an effort to end the industry’s boom-and-bust cycle and create
centres of expertise that offer uninterrupted employment
B.C. Premier Christy Clark jumped on the bandwagon
late in the game, first expressing support for the company in the
spring, just weeks before Seaspan delivered its 30,000-page bid.The
province’s commitment to the B.C. bid fell short of what Seaspan had
hoped. The B.C. Liberal government has a no-subsidies policy, which has
denied such assistance to the shipyards.
Seaspan had been aiming for the larger contract,
worth $25-billion. CEO Jonathan Whitworth said , “If we
wouldn’t have won this, it probably would have been the death of the
industry,” he said. “Fortunately, today we get to see the rebirth. We
see an industry that was probably close to its last legs now come back.”
The B.C. government refused Seaspan’s request for a
tax credit to help it improve its infrastructure to deliver on this
contract, which would have improved its bid. Whitworth said it is too
early to say if greater support might have landed B.C. the larger
contract.
B.C. shipyards have been starved by the government’s policy.
Now Seaspan needs to spend between $160-million and $200-million in the
next three years on upgrading its infrastructure.
BCGEU
Opens New Regional Office in Nanaimo
Darrell Walker, President of the BC Goverment Employees
Union welcomes members and guests to their new Regional Office in
Nanaimo.
Noting that the GEU now owns 7 out of 13 office buildings
used by the union, Walker pointed out that the buildings are available
not only for BCGEU members, but also other community
organizations.
The new office has a number of meetings rooms, including
this one, space for staff offices, a boardroom, a lunch room and space
for video-conferencing.
CUPE Air Line Attendants Reach Last Minute Deal
Just hours before the Conservatives could legislate an end
to a threatened strike at Air Canada, Canada’s largest airline , Air
Canada and CUPE's Air Canada component
representing flight
attendants reached a deal just hours before workers were set to walk
off the job.
Jeff Taylor, president of CUPE’s Air Canada
component, said the union would recommend workers accept the new deal.
The news came on the eve of a strike deadline that would have seen
6,800 airline employees walk off the job at midnight Wednesday. Before
the sides reached an agreement, the Lisa Raitt, the Conservative
Minister of Labour, threatened back-to-work legislation if
flight attendants walked off of the job. NDP labour
critic Yvon Godin said he doesn’t believe the threat
of legislation helped the two sides reach an agreement.
Rallies in support of the flight attendants, who were seeking
improvements in wages, pension and working conditions, were scheduled
in several cities Tuesday, including Ottawa, Toronto and Calgary.
The attendants have been without a contract since March 31.
Overwhelming
Support for New Agreement at Fairmont Hotel Vancouver
CAW Local 4275 members who work at the Fairmont Hotel
Vancouver have overwhelmingly ratified a new three-year contract with
wage, benefit and pension improvements.
The workers, who resisted company demands for concessions,
voted 94 per cent in favour of the new agreement at ratification
meetings September 13.
The agreement includes 2.5 per cent in wage increases in the
first year, 2.5 per cent in the second and 2.5 per cent in the third.
There are dental, short-term disability, and paramedical coverage
improvements as well as gains in shift premiums and improved
housekeeping workload language. In addition, family responsibility
leave is now guaranteed in the contract.
In a major step forward in bargaining with the Fairmont
hotel chain, company contributions toward retirement savings will
increase to 3.7 per cent by the third year of the agreement.
CAW National Representative Gavin McGarrigle said the strong
94 per cent strike mandate from the membership sent a message to the
company who continued to demand concessions and who had flatly rejected
the proposal for increased pension contributions.
"There is no doubt that the willingness of the members to
stand behind their union and take action if necessary was the key
factor in reaching this new three year agreement," said McGarrigle.
CAW Local 4275 President Terry Tanasiuk said "the
membership's awesome display of solidarity sent a powerful message to
the company that concessions were not acceptable and that improvements
to benefits and wages, as well as the breakthrough in increased
retirement contributions were needed in order to avoid a work
stoppage. The committee and membership have demonstrated how
critically important it is that hotel workers are organized with a
strong union like the CAW. "
CAW Local 4275 represents 450 workers at Fairmont's flagship
Hotel Vancouver.
Thanks to CAW for this story.
Workers
Block Planned Auction
U.S. Owners Owe $2 Million To Workers
U.S.-based Catalina
Precision Products, Ltd in Windsor ON is planning to auction off
equipment at Aradco and Aramco plants, while it still has not paid
vacation, severance and termination pay amounting to some $2.4 million.
For more on this story go
here
Health
Minister Falcon Bypasses Negotiations,
Orders Paramedics To Accept Offer Before Vote Concluded
On November 3, the British Columbia government introduced
legislation to impose a contract on the province’s striking
paramedics. B.C. Minister of Health Services Kevin Falcon claimed
that, “with the H1N1 pandemic impacting the acutecare system and
winter and the holiday season fast approaching, the public needs
certainty that they’ll have the care they need in an emergency”,
The paramedics have been on strike since April 1 for better staffing
levels, wages and an independent industrial inquiry commission to
address the critical condition of ambulance services in British
Columbia.
During the strike, paramedics have been forced to perform
virtually all their normal services under a so-called
“essential-services” order from the provincial government.
The Ambulance Service Collective Agreement Act reflects an offer
made to the CUPE 873 paramedics in September. The one-year deal is
retroactive to April 1, 2009, and includes a wage increase of just
three per cent. At that time, John Strohmaier, the president of CUPE
873 told his members the latest contract offer at that time was
“repugnant” and “a piece of crap.” He said the offer was,
“woefully short of reasonable expectations.”
In a statement, the union said it is unfair to dedicate ambulances
and paramedics to the Olympics Whistler Sliding Centre for three
weeks of practice while as many as 20 B.C. communities are left with
no ambulances on any given day.
NDP
Finds "Smoking Gun"
Links Legislation to Olympics
And why did the paramedics have a collective
agreement forced upon
them while they were still voting on the last offer? The NDP says
it’s the Olympic Games.
On November 4, MLA John Horgan quoted what may
illustrate the real
reason for the imposition. He read a memo, from VANOC's director of
medical services, Dr. Mike Wilkinson, warning of the consequences if
paramedics’ services couldn’t be guaranteed. The memo had been sent to
The former Deputy Minister of Labour, Lee Doney. It reads
"VANOC Medical Services requires definite
confirmation by
October 1, 2009, that all required ambulance services will be
provided as planned. These services include the ability to engage the
VPCs" — which are the Vancouver paramedic crews — "and
BCAS" — which is the B.C. Ambulance Service — "members
in full venue planning as soon as possible. This confirmation must
also include a guarantee that no services during the games will be
disrupted or reduced from what has been planned."
Horgan went on to
say, "I don't know about you, hon. Speaker, and smoking guns, but it
strikes me that that memorandum from VANOC to the guy at the
negotiating table on behalf of the B.C. Liberal government, saying that
we really need to get this pesky issue resolved before we can start
planning for health services at venues across the Lower Mainland…. We
really need to get this resolved. Then
not weeks after that memo crossed the desk of Mr. Doney, we have in
this place back-to-work legislation."
Unite
Here! Local 40
Rallies in Nanaimo


Rob Campbell, CUPE 1858
MP Jean Crowder, MLA Len Krog


CEP members, President Oxman (NDDLC)
Steel 1-1937's John Little and IAMAW
Rep Alastair Haythornthwaite

Maggie Phinney & Vice President Sue Creba Show Support from the
NDDLC
Coast Hotel cleaner Tracey McAlpine describes the difficult
task of cleaning 18 rooms a day in the Coast Bastion. She noted that
she frequently had to take time to retrieve cleaning supplies from
different floors, and that the only way to keep up is to "cut corners"
and skip lunches and breaks.
She also said recent renovations at the Coast have made them harder to
clean, especially with light coloured fabrics.
The rally concluded with a warning to Coast Hotels.
Unite
Here! Local 40 will not accept substandard agreements. They will not
accept overwork, they demand respect from their employers, and they
WILL conduct more demonstrations unless they are heard.
CLC
Economist Warns Crisis Not Over Yet
Speaking
at the All Island Labour
Council meeting in Victoria Saturday, CLC senior economist Andrew
Jackson (shown at left) remarked that while it appears the global
financial crisis may have
“bottomed out”, what's really happening
isn't
yet a recovery, it's just that jobs losses are occurring more
slowly.
He added that
while Canada has an official job loss
of just under 10 %, when you add in those who went from full time
jobs to part-time jobs, and those who went to self employment, the
real figure is more like 15%, he said.
The real danger
is that talk about
going back to a balanced budget by both Liberals and Tories, both of
whom have ruled out tax increases, leave no other way to
address the deficit
other than deep spending cuts.
When union
officials of all G20
countries met with government heads of state in Pittsburgh recently,
they told Harper it was not the time to begin considering an exit
strategy but that governments had to stay the course on stimulus. In
the short to medium term, Jackson
saw no reason to move to balanced budgets.
Instead, with
interest rates at rock
bottom, we should look at what kinds of public projects make sense,
including energy conservation projects and energy refits. The private
sector, he warned, is not going to create the jobs we need.
More and more
manufacturers were
shifting production out of the country, said Jackson, giving as an
example, John
Deere, who shut a new manufacturing plant in Welland ON and fired 800
CAW members.
What has been
driving the economy forward before
this crisis is working families going deeper in debt. The top .1% of
income earners got 5% of all income, and their income increased by a
billion dollars. Real wages, on the other hand, stagnated with no
growth.
And while wages
are low in foreign
countries, so is consumption. In the US and Canada about 75–80 % of
spending is household consumption,
while in China it is only 30%, so it will take a long time to ramp up
the Chinese economy.
He
also pointed out that in the US,
wage rates are falling rapidly, and without a real welfare system,
workers are undercutting each other on wages.
Delegates
To All Island Labour Council Discuss E.I. Reform

At the latest all island Labour Council meeting in Victoria
October 2, delegates discussed needed c
hanges
to unemployment insurance rules. Ottawa
collects EI premiums and has built up a gigantic surplus of
$54 billion in the fund, the result of deep cuts in benefits paid to
unemployed workers.
In 1996, the maximum weekly benefit was $604.
Today’s maximum is only $435, and the average benefit is just $335 per
week. In 2006-07,
only four in ten unemployed workers, and even fewer
women, qualified for EI. Those who do qualify are eligible, on average,
for just 32 weeks of benefits. Some who do qualify are only eligible
for a maximum of 14 weeks of benefits.One delegate from Port Alberni,
laid off in the forest
industry, said all he got was 19 ½ weeks of benefits.
When the CLC
did in depth studies of eight Canadian communities, including
Campbell River, they found many people had already run out of
benefits, many more were about to run out of benefits, and most of the
forest workers laid off last year had run out of benefits entirely.
The Conservative
plan to increase
benefits from 15 to 20 weeks, said Andrew
Jackson, will leave out anyone who
collected more than 35 weeks of benefits in the past 5 ½ years.
Conservatives are making capricious decisions about who is deserving
or undeserving of receiving benefits.
Delegates
pointed out it is already very difficult for anyone who has
lost a job to find a new one. Canada lags behind other
industrialized countries in worker
training. We must increase access to labour adjustment programs and
training, as well to extend E.I.
Benefits and training benefits to get people back in the workforce.
CLC
sees Opportunity For Pension Reform
Speaking at the
Victoria All-Island Labour Council Meeting, CLC Senior Economist Andrew
Jackson pointed out the
current panic
in financial markets has caused those markets to slump in value by $4
Trillion. As a result, employer funded pensions have also taken a big
hit, especially with interest rates as low as they are now. The
average private pension plan is underfunded by 20-30%.
There is some
return in the equity market, so there is some improvement in the
viability of private pension plans but many of them cannot deliver
what they are expected to deliver. Air Canada finances are so shaky
that they cannot fund the pension plan without going under. In other
words workers are being asked to trade off pensions for jobs. He added
that while we know how much private pensions
have lost, we have absolutely no idea how much RRSPs have lost in
value, but many have lost more than 30% in value.
The CLC Plan to
provide dignity in retirement has three separate legs to stand on, he
said. The first leg is to improve the
Guaranteed Income Supplement by 15%. While
Canada has lower poverty for seniors than
many other countries, the Old Age Pension and the Guaranteed Income
Supplement provide only a bare minimum income. Raising it
would move all seniors
above the poverty line, and end the situation where 1 senior woman in
6 lives in poverty.

To provide
better pension benefits, tax
subsidies to RRSPs could be reduced to finance an increase in Old Age
Security benefits paid to all workers. The GIS is means tested, so
only those in need would receive it.
The second leg
is to double the Canada
Pension Plan payout. CPP was only
designed
to provide about 25% of annual income and private pensions were
expected to cover other needs. With a small
increase of 5.5% in total, split
between employees and employers over a period of seven to ten years,
we could raise the payout of CPP from 25% of average salary to 50% of
average salary. Since the CPP is fully portable and fully indexed it
will provide far better security for all retirees. And raising the
CPP will reduce the amount paid out for GIS.
CLC proposes
this be paid for with
either a small premium by employers or a financial transaction
(including stock market transactions) tax at a very low rate –
something like a tenth of one percent per transaction.
Employees are
far more at risk with
private pension plans. Nortel employees found this out the hard way
when they failed to receive severance and discovered their pension plan
was
underfunded by 33%. Members of a CAW local in New Brunswick
discovered that for years their employer had been diverting pension
money to operations, so that their pension plan was underfunded by
50%. An employee of 20 years ended up with a total pension of $400
per month.
One
third of Canadians have no
retirement savings of any sort. Only 38 % of Canadians have a private
pension plan of some sort. Many are seriously underfunded, most are
not portable and they are far more subject to pension fund collapse
if employers go bankrupt.
On the other
hand, in Canada, the vast majority of private
pension plans are for 1-4 people – mainly the executives of
corporations. While execs at Nortel took $45 Million in bonuses, and
$1 million a year pensions, their employee pension plans were
underfunded by 33%.
RRSPs have also
failed to deliver.
RRSPs have an extremely high cost,
with admin and charges often eating up 2-3%of
your fund, making it very difficult to accumulate capital
with current
low interest rates. Those with RRSPs have average amounts
saved of only $60,000, which will only currently provide some $250
per month as an annuity.
Those
with RRSP savings also saw them
depleted drastically in the recent crash.
Jackson
predicted banks and other financial institutions
will lobby very hard against improvements to the CPP, because they
want to preserve their very lucrative RRSPs. Large corporations, on
the other hand, would benefit from an increase in CPP because their
private plans are usually integrated with the CPP, and their costs
would be lowered somewhat.
He suggested
that we must introduce federal pension plan
insurance to deal with failing employer plans. Ontario now has pension
plan insurance up to
$1000/month for each worker, and it has been recommended they raise
that to $2500/month. This fund should be brought in at the national
level, with each province able to opt into it.
He concluded by
saying, "This is a fairness issue. We simply
must bring the same sort of values to pensions that we see in
medicare. Everyone must be covered and no one should be locked out in
the cold."
Weyerhauser
Forced to Compensate Workers
Workers collect more than $ 267,000
After 33 years of working for Weyerhaeuser — Peter
Wakeling was diagnosed with a terminal brain disease and he was forced
to collect
long-term disability benefits.
Four months later, while Wakeling and his wife
Trudi were coping with the
progressively debilitating effects of the disease, cerebellum ataxia,
Wakeling received a termination letter from Weyerhaeuser. Wakeling was
extremely upset with the impersonal letter, feeling he had
“worked his ass off for Weyerhaeuser” for more than 30 years.
Then Wakeling, 59, learned he wasn’t alone. The
company had terminated three other employees — Ed Iceton, David
Cardoso, and Ingrid Schellenberg — all while they were on
longterm
disability benefits. Some months later, they permanently closed the OK
Falls plant where they had been employed.
Their union, Steelworkers Local
1-423, filed a discrimination complaint with the
B.C. Human Rights Tribunal against Weyerhaeuser.
The tribunal found that Weyerhaeuser
rushed to
terminate the four employees to avoid paying them severance, which was
discrimination of mental and physical disabilities. It ordered
Weyerhaeuser to reinstate the
union members to the employment status they held at the time of
termination and to pay them severance.
The collective agreement states that upon severance because of plant
closure, each employee will be paid 10 days of pay for every year of
service.
The tribunal also ordered the company to
compensate them for injuries to
their dignity, feelings and self-respect: $20,000 to Wakeling, $16,000
to Iceton, $14,000 to Cardoso and $5,000 to Schellenberg. “ The total
the company has to pay is over $267,000,” USWA Local 1-423
vice-president Pat McGregor said yesterday.
Weyerhaeuser does not plan to appeal.
CUPE
873 Paramedics Offered "Crap"
Membership Will
Vote On Sub-standard Offer
John Strohmaier, president of CUPE
Local 873, called the most recent contract offer
“repugnant” and “a piece of crap,” in
an internal message to members on Monday night.
The president of the union representing B.C.’s
striking paramedics told his members
negotiations with the B.C. Ambulance Service have reached an impasse,
and called the offer “woefully short of reasonable expectations.”
“We could never recommend this settlement proposal
to our membership,” Strohmaier wrote.
Nevertheless, the union executive said yesterday it
will take the offer
to the membership for a ratification vote.
Victoria
Yellow Cab Office
Workers Strike
A dozen dispatchers and office workers
at
Victoria’s largest taxi
company are on strike, calling for wage parity with their competitors
and improved benefits. Yellow Cab of
Victoria employees hit the picket lines after rejecting the company’s
latest offer.
Taxi drivers are not involved in the
dispute and
Yellow Cab managers,
who are taking calls and dispatching cabs to clients, said it is
business as usual. Yellow Cab operates more than 90 taxis in Greater
Victoria.
The company has offered a five-year
package with a
five-cent-anhour increase the first year and 10 cents an hour in each
of the following four years. Striking workers called the offer
unacceptable, especially since
management also wants to start charging employees $50 to $60 a month
for parking, which would erase any wage increases.
Dave Angus, business agent for Teamsters Local
213, said
Yellow Cab is using replacement
workers — or people the company hired after the three-year collective
agreement expired in January — to handle calls. He said the Teamsters
will file a complaint with the province’s Labour Relations Board.
Yellow Cab office workers are making between $13 and $16 an hour.
BCNU
Delegates Suspended From Labour Council
Activities
As can be seen by the letter below to Labour councils from
the
Canadian Labour Congress, the delegates from the BC Nurses Union have
been suspended from participating in labour councils and education
programs. All BCNU delegates to the NDDLC have been advised
of the suspension.
Ongoing meetings between the CLC, BC Federation of Labour Executive
with representatives of the BCNU have failed to resolve this sad
situation. In a conference call to labour councils, delegates were
requested to treat members of the BCNU with respect as the labour
movement attempts to avoid irrepairable damage and end this dispute.