Canada’s Labor Movement Digs in for ‘PATCO Equivalent,’ as Lockouts Drag On

[marmar]

from In These Times:



Canada’s Labor Movement Digs in for ‘PATCO Equivalent,’ as Lockouts Drag On
By Mike Elk


It's usually difficult to get more than a few hundred union activists to show up to a rally in support of a small workforce facing steep concessions. But on January 21, more than 15,000 people showed up to a rally in support of 420 workers locked out in London, Ontario, according to organizers. That struggle, combined with a mine lockout in Alma, Quebec that also began on New Year's Day, is being billed by some embattled Canadian union officials as a pivotal moment for the country's labor movement akin to the failed 1981 air traffic controllers union (PATCO) strike that kicked of an era of unionbusting in the United States.

On January 1, Electro-Motive Diesel and England- and Australia-based mining giant Rio Tinto both decided to lock out workers in what some union officials see as a coordinated attack. Rio Tinto, which locked out 780 workers represented by the United Steelworkers, wants the right to replace each union worker that retires with a contract employee making half a union-level wage and ineligible to join the union. The result would be that in one decade, unionized workers would likely be in the minority in the aluminum smelting facility in Alma, and that in two decades the union would not exist, according to USW organizer Joe Drexler.

U.S.-based Caterpillar, which owns the Electro-Motive Diesel locomotive plant through a subsidiary, locked out 420 members of the Canadian Auto Workers Local 27. Despite Caterpillar increasing its profits by 44 percent over the last year, the company is asking union workers to let it cut wages by by as $18.50 an hour (55 percent) in some cases. The company is also asking for the elimination of defined benefits pensions as well as reduction in overtime and vacation plans.

“It’s no coincidence in my view that two different companies decided to lock out the two biggest industrial unions in Canada—the Steelworkers and the CAW—on the same day. This looks like an orchestrated attack,” said Communication, Energy, and Paperworkers Union President Dave Coles, whose union is in the process of merging with the CAW. “When you have these kind of big gigantic struggles, you don’t know who is going to win, but by the time this is done, these employers are going to have goddamn bloody noses. We are not going to allow Canadian employers to kick the shit out of Canadian workers.” ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/12617/american_low_wages_at_center_of_canadas_patco_like_struggle/

[MADem]

1. That brings up some unfortunate memories....

I have friends who were PATCO members--they got the Reagan treatment.

My, my, those were ugly times.