This week the top stories sections on our Canadian French- and English-language pages included coverage of the hearings at the Quebec labour tribunal where Amazon is facing charges of union-busting stemming from its decision to close its warehouse operations in that province after workers at one location organized.
The case reminds me of similar charges for similar reasons after workers at a Walmart store in Quebec organized some years ago.
Major testimony so far has come from the company president.
The workers union, the CSN, is pouring resources into the hearings, good on it. Watch for updates as we’ll be posting everything we see. Hearing dates run into next summer.
Other stories included a Manitoba Labour Board decision that found a construction company illegally fired a worker who preferred the Carpenters Union over the Christian Labour Association of Canada or CLAC, as any reasonable worker would. Looking over the coverage of the decision it looks to me as though the company was doing what it could to maintain a cosy relationship with CLAC rather than have an aggressive union elbow it aside.
This week’s global story is from the US where Labour Notes is calling for more support from US workers and their unions for organizing efforts in Mexico. It makes the obvious but also too often ignored point that international solidarity has concrete benefits for all and isn’t charity.
Over on LabourStart’s Working Women pages stories from Canada included a summary of a new survey from the Ontario Building and Construction Tradeswomen (OBCT) which shows that while more women are choosing careers in the skilled trades, many continue to face systemic barriers that affect recruitment and retention in the sector. The story contains a link to the full report.
Another was from rabble and lays out the potential harm women workers in the federal public service will experience as layoffs hit just as the positive results of a decades-long push for pay equity for federal government workers is going to kick-in.
And we had a story about an innovative anti-gender violence programme, a collaboration between the White Ribbon Campaign, the Steelworkers, and the CFL Players Association.
The CFLPA is in the habit of coming up with some really interesting programmes. A union worth keeping an eye on.
Among the Canadian items appearing on our health and safety page and newswire this week was yet another call for an effective response to workplace violence in schools. This time it came from CUPE and was specific to Ontario, but it could have been any other union in any province or territory. Or just about any other country, as you’ll see if you give out health and safety news page a quick scan. Australia for instance. Or Kenya. Violence aimed at public-facing workers is a global epidemic.
LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is of protesters from five major unions marching outside the Malaysian Parliament, urging the government to take decisive action against employers accused of engaging in widespread union-busting.
The labour movement’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:
In 1925 three thousand workers at shoe factories in Quebec City went on strike when the employers announce reduced rates of pay. When the workers agreed to submit the dispute to arbitration, they won a favourable result, but the employers refused to accept the decision.
And in 1929 at Onion Lake, in Northern Ontario, two Finnish-Canadian lumber camp union organizers were seen for the last time. When the bodies of Viljo Rosvall and Janne Voutilainen were found under the ice in the spring of 1930, they were buried as martyrs to the labour cause.
A quick personal note: a few years ago I was in Thunder Bay and an old CUPE comrade took me around town for an informal labour history tour that included not only the Finnish Labour Temple, and, of course, the Hoito, but the monument in a local cemetery, paid-for by Labour Council, in memory of Viljo and Janne.
There are lots more labour history items like this to be found at the bottom of our Canadian news pages. Look for them and be inspired.
Speaking of inspiration, in this week’s podcast Eric Lee spoke with Amalie Hilde Tofte from the trade union Styrke in Norway. They’re the sponsors of the annual Arthur Svensson International Prize for Trade Union Rights, what’s often referred-to as the Nobel Prize of the global labour movement. Amalie talks about the background to the prize, some of the winners in recent years, and how one applies. We even learned who Arthur Svensson was.
LabourStart is currently campaigning on behalf of a Guatemalan union leader, garment workers in Lesotho, Serbian air traffic controllers, and a Dutch migrant workers union organizer. In each case a union is asking that we all send a prepared solidarity message, something that will only take a few seconds out of your busy day.
This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.
Labour News Network 