Protest walkouts spread (BC, Canada)

[Lisa]

VANCOUVER - Vancouver City Hall has been shut down by CUPE workers, who have set up a protest picket line in support of the striking hospital workers.

The job action means the public won't be able to pay bills or fines, or apply for business licences.

The city's outside CUPE employees have also walked out – which means no city garbage collection, street maintenance or sewer services.

Many of the city hall workers went down the street and joined the picket lines at Vancouver General Hospital.


more ...


http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=bc_protest20040430

*** as an aside, the unions at BC's universities will start picketing on Monday. My union just circulated a memo with our plan of action. CUPE (Canada's biggest public service union) is hoping to field 70,000 members provincewide. Strikes could spread throughout the public sector -- parents in Victoria were asked to keep their children home from school today, and BC Hydro and some mill workers walked off the job. No word yet on whether the ferries will be affected, but anyone planning on going to Vancouver or to/from the Island should be aware of events. BC Transit (in Victoria and probably the Lower Mainland) may have rotating strikes or be shut down altogether.

[Sinistrous]

1. Checked a link on the page you cited and found this:

http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=bc_lrb_one20040430

<snip>

On Thursday, the Hospital Employees' Union refused to go back to work after the provincial government legislated an end to its strike.

That legislation also imposed a new contract that cuts workers' hourly pay by 15 per cent retroactive to April 1 – and orders them to pay back money they'd already earned.

<more>

Am I missing something, or was that a really heavy-handed action by the provincial government?

[Spazito]

2. Heavy-handed is an understatement...

it is beyond the pale. This is not the first time either, they did this to the teachers, doctors and another group previously. I hope it becomes a province wide strike. The Liberal (in name only) party needs to hear from everyone that what they did was unacceptable, imo.

[Sinistrous]

3. I am stunned.

I never knew the anti-labor sentiment was that strong in Canada.
Legislation ordering people back to work, with a 15% pay CUT, RETROACTIVE, no less, and an order to pay back the 15% on wages earned since April 1???

Yes. Beyond the pale. Of course, we have huge and powerful anti-worker forces here in the US. They are just more devious.

[Spazito]

4. Canada isn't anti-labor, as a whole,this is specific to this ...

provincial government, thank goodness. The roll-back of wages along with the retroactive claw-back is incredible. I don't know that it has ever happened before.

[Hand]

6. It's going to blow up in Campbell's face...

Our arsehole Tory premier in NS tried something similar a couple of years ago--passed a bill basically depriving the hospital support staff (nurses, lab techs, custodians, etc.) of collective bargaining rights and allowing the govt. to impose a settlement at its whim.

The nurses started working to rule--took their lunch break for the first time in YEARS--and 65% handed in resignation papers. The dumbass Tories thought they were kidding...

Then the recruiters from the US and Alberta showed up in town. WOW! Did they rescind that bill in a hurry! The fact is that health care personnel have ALL the power situations like this, and if they have to vote with their feet to exercise it, well... that's an entirely viable option. Not a problem--show me a province or a state that has too many nurses or skilled med techs.

Campbell--you're going to lose. It's that simple. You deserve to lose, you dumb shit...

:mad: :nuke:

[Lisa]

5. absolutely ...

Many unions suspected that something like this would happen, and a couple of years ago a number of mutual support plans were formed. Hence the May 3rd protests.


http://www.heu.org/


Apparently what the province wants is to break the back of the Hospital Employees' Union, and eventually replace trained staff with contract workers (who wouldn't have benefits or job security) paid half the salary. More and more of the workload would be placed on these workers, many of whom wouldn't have the skills (or the support to upgrade) to perform the tasks.

One reason I'm especially worried is that diseases like SARS can spread very rapidly in hospitals or old-age homes that haven't got properly-trained employees or adequate staffing -- we noticed this in Toronto already. Those facilities have to be kept clean and well-maintained or there could be a lot of problems in the future!

I went to a couple of the nearby pickets and passed out water and fruit juice -- a hot day today, and I was worried about the strikers getting dehydrated. They were very appreciative.


From the CUPE memo sent around:

"Concessions included wage rollbacks of up to 16 percent, reduced sick leave, limited long-term disability benefits, vacation leave rollbacks, fewer benefits from part-time workers and elimination of pay equity.

More than 2,500 pink slips have been issued since bargaining began January 9."

[The Zanti Regent]

7. Question--Who runs the British Columbian government?

Is it still the Social Credit folks or are the New Democrats still in power? Please let me know!

[CHIMO]

8. Officially

It is called a Liberal party.


Without going into reams of research, it is a collection of people who couldn't win under the Social Credit folks so they moved into another party name. It doesn't represent other parties under the same name in the Country.


Looks like workers are now going to take over.

So who is still in power is questionable.

[arikara]

9. They call themselves the Liberal party

but they are retread Social Crediters that took over the party after we turfed them out. I think this bunch are worse than the socreds ever were though. They have a privatization agenda and only one year left on their mandate so they are in a hurry to sell off all the province's assets and break the unions.

[Hand]

10. Ah...

Now I get it. I knew that the Socreds had been irredeemably discredited some years ago as a bunch of corrupt bastards. So THAT's where they wound up.

Canadian politics can be very weird...

:crazy:

[ironflange]

11. Not just Socred retreads

Plenty of Tories and BC Reformers in that "Liberal" party too. Probably even Western Canada Concept nutjobs in there too. (To those who don't know, WCC = Western separatists)

[Lisa]

12. 77 "Liberals" and 2 NDPers in the Legislature ...

That's how they managed to ram this ill-considered legislation through. Joy and Jenny (the NDP members) shouted until they were hoarse, but with those kinds of numbers, even with 2 defecting Liberals supporting the Opposition, there wasn't much they could do.

Update -- today's general strike was called off due to an eleventh-hour agreement, but some of the HEU locals are still out protesting the way in which it was done, and our union has said that we are welcome to support the pickets (which were deemed illegal by the court).