AROUND THE

LABOUR MOVE

QFL greets Wal-Mart cert
@ __sInearly August the Quebec

> Federation of Labour greeted
—— the UFCW’s historic

FTO organizing win at a Wal-Mart
retail outlet in Jonquiere, in the
Saguenay region. The Wal-Mart
branch is the first fully-unionized
store of the giant retailer in North
America. The UFCW has ongoing
organizing drives in Saskatchewan,
Manitoba and British Columbia (see
CLC story this page).

AFL calls on union members
to join in health care fight
Although no date has yet been set for
the next Alberta provincial election,
the provincial federation of labour is
caling on union members throughout

the province to take
action to save the
public medicare.

Premier Ralph Klein
has been advocating a two-tiered
health care system. AFL president
Kerry Barrett says that union mem-
bers can join the fight by visiting the
Canadian Health Care Coaltion web-
site at: www.healthcoalition.ca and
going to the “Friends of Medicare”
website to join grass-roots fight back
campaigns. She said “...in this fight
we have the vast majority of
Canadians with us.”

Fed questions government

on building ferries overseas
B.C. Fed president Jim Sinclair and
other labour leaders are questioning
BC Ferries’ move to by-pass local ship-
yards in favour of sending contracts to
a European bidder.
“B.C. tax payers don’t
want to help to pay to
sends jobs overseas.”
The labour leader said

FED public support for B.C.

ship builders is growing and called for
an open and transparent deal. He
added that British Columbians are fed-
up with secret deals to sell-off trans-
portation infrastructure. BC Ferries’ cor-
porate head will go to Bahamas in
November to sell off ferry routes to
international buyers.

Social and economic change
promoted by Sask federation
The SFL has been working since
February with Government Relations
and Aboriginal Affairs to promote the
employment of Aboriginal persons.
The Fed has agreed to jointly identify
barriers to greater par-
ticipation for aborigi-
nals and promote fair-
ness and equity in col-
(4 lective agreements.
“The agreement is a
good stepping stone for trade unions
to work proactively with government
and industry to assist aboriginal work-
ers reach gainful employment — to
help build self esteem, and make pos-
itive contributions to our communi-
ties,” says Local 1-184 president Paul
Hallen.

sx) Sd]

PHOTO BY NORMAN GARCIA

= Across Canada, Wal-Mart pays some 60,000 Canadians low wages in over

250 retail outlets.

Wal-mart: denying workers’ rights

IN LATTER JULY Canadian
Labour Congress presi-
” dent Ken Georgetti did
something unusual and
innovative: he fired-off an
e-mail letter to the head of the Wal-
mart Corporation in Arkansas, Mr. S.
Robson Walton. The message con-
tained a copy of the Canadian Charter
of Rights and Freedoms, saying the
mega-retailer should give it a good
read. The e-mail also contained links to
the Charter’s text and fact sheets done
by Canada’s Department of Justice.
“It’s nice to see Wal-Mart has finally
discovered that people have rights in
Canada, however it still needs to realize
that this includes its employees,” wrote

Brother Georgetti. The labour leader
wrote in support of an organizing cam-
paign, conducted by the United Food
and Commercial Workers Union
(UFCW) to organize workers in
Weyburn, Saskatchewan. The company
has been working hard to deny workers
the right to belong to a union, despite
the fact that a majority of them had
signed card to be a UFCW member.
Wal-Mart itself is using the charter
to promote what it considers its right to
communicate with workers during an
organizing drive. In late July, a justice
of the Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s
Bench ruled that the provincial labour
relations board did not have a right to
demand internal Wal-Mart documents,

including one called “Wal-Mart
Manager Toolbox to Remain Union
Free.” The company and the UFCW
both intend to proceed with the case.

Wal-Mart wants to strike down
Canadian labour laws prohibiting it
from speaking out to its employees,
which the union says is interference in
its right to organize.

UFCW Canada’s national director
Michael Fraser said that it is “ludicrous
the The Charter, which is meant to
guarantee the rights and freedoms of
Canadians, is now being used by a
weapon by Wal-Mart against its own
workers. Nothing happens in Wal-Mart
without direction from the corporate
office in Arkansas. It is an insult to all
Canadians that Wal-Mart corporate
bosses in Arkansas are trying to rewrite
our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

In addition to its campaign in
Weyburn, the union has been conduct-
ing drives in North Battleford,
Saskatchewan; Thompson, Manitoba;
Terrace, B.C.; in Brossard and
Jonquiere, Quebec, where it just won
its first certification (see QFL news this
page, top left).

Wal-Mart is the world’s largest com-
pany with profits that reached $8 bil-
lion in 2002. In 2003, the company
sold more than $245 billion worldwide.
It employs some 60,000 workers in
low-paying jobs at over 250 stores
across Canada, while employing 1.5
million people worldwide. Workers,
called “associates,” are classified as full-
time when they work 28 hours a week.
The UFCW claims that the company’s
“benefits” can cost workers up to $1 per
hour worked. Those classified as part-
time get no benefits.

In the U.S., many regard Wal-Mart
as a corporate renegade that pays low
wages, low benefits, and has high
turnover rates. The UFCW has been
assisted by the SEIU, Teamsters,
HERE and the AFL-CIO in its organiz-
ing drives. In the state of Maine, the
company has been charged with 1,400
child labour violations and 1 million
American women have joined a class
action suit against the company over
alleged discriminatory practices.

Wal-mart also purchases large
amounts of its products from Third
World sweatshops.

Local joins NB Fed in supporting
nurses demand for fair wages
The New Brunswick Federation of
Labour and its affiliate unions are solidly
behind the New
Brunswick Nurses
Union in their call for
wage parity with other
Maritime province nurs-
es. On September 7, on
the heels of a 98.1 per
cent strike mandate, the nurses drove a
tentative settlement. The deal is to go
before the 5,900 members for a vote. If
it is rejected the nurses will remain in
legal strike position in latter September.
Local 1-306 president Mario Fortunato
says “labour has telemarked that there is
going to be tremendous support for the
nurses if they have to exercise their right
to strike.” Last year NB nurses had to
work some 250,000 hours of overtime.

Labour calls for privacy protection
The Manitoba Federation of Labour
has called for the further safeguarding
of personal medical information. It
hopes that a submis-
sion it made to the

@® ‘ ea
iy ”/, review commission
4 FL ‘on the Freedom of
=z Information and
r— Protection Privacy

Act this past spring
will be acted on in the future. The act,
first set up in 1997, is supposed to pro-
tect personal medical information and
grant individuals access to any infor-
mation stored on them. Among the list
of recommendations the MFL has
called for, is that when employers are
legally granted access to a file, the
request should be only related to a
relavent topic or event and not provide
a “fishing expedition.”

OFL questions Liberals on P3’s
Ontario Federation of Labour execu-
tive vice-president Irene Harris has
called the Liberal government on their
intentions to
increase Private
Public Partnerships
in the province. In
late July Sister Harris
criticized David
Caplan, Minister for Infrastructure
Renewal, over a policy paper's financ-
ing strategy. “We certainly want public
ownership of our province's infrastruc-
ture but we also want public delivery
of the services,” said Harris who
added that without that commitment,
“public services continue to be under
threat of privatization.” She said that
prior to the last provincial election, the
Liberals promised public consultation
on any P3's.

18 | THE ALLIED WORKER SEPTEMBER 2004