Very predictably, Walmart has announced the closing of their automobile centre in Gatineau Quebec a few months after the employes voted to form a union. This is the second time in Quebec that the giant corporation has flexed its muscle to avoid the spread of unionism amongst its employees. People really need to think long and hard about whether they need to save a few dollars at the expense of workers' rights to a living wage.
October 16, 2008
The Canadian Press
MONTREAL — Wal-Mart Canada is closing an automobile centre in Gatineau, Que., where employees had formed a union and recently secured their first collective agreement.
The retailer said today it closed the shop because it couldn’t accept salary increases for the store’s five mechanics. Wal-Mart said the higher wages would force it to increase prices by 30 per cent.
The unionized workers and the Tire and Lube Express centre manager won’t necessarily lose their jobs because they can be transferred to another department at the store or to another of Wal-Mart’s auto centres.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union president called Wal-Mart’s decision an attack on its workers and a “blatant disregard” for Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“Wal-Mart thinks a cheap oil change is more important than the Canadian Constitution,” Wayne Hanley said in a news release.
The closure marks the second time Wal-Mart has closed a Quebec outlet after workers decided to form a union.
In April 2005, the retailer closed an entire store in Saguenay affecting more than 200 workers just as binding arbitration for a first contract was set to begin. The retailers said the store wasn’t profitable.
The Supreme Court of Canada agreed in August to hear appeals from a number of workers who lost their jobs.
Showing posts with label unfair labor practices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unfair labor practices. Show all posts
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
The Frasier Institute, Mississippi, and Quebec
Canada’s right-wing ‘think’ tank, the Frasier Institute (the term ‘institute,’ I guess, gives it the patina of academia, although, of course, it is affiliated with no university), in its latest evaluation of North American labour market ‘flexibility,’ gave Quebec the bottom spot. The jurisdiction with the top ranking is Mississippi. To find out the kind of simplistic thinking this ‘institute’ engages in, feel free to read the following article from today’s Globe and Mail:
Fraser Institute's labour ‘flexibility' too hard and fast
KONRAD YAKABUSKI
September 4, 2008 at 6:00 AM EDT
When the downtown Montreal borough of Ville Marie passed a bylaw last year requiring shopkeepers to keep the sidewalk in front of their stores clean, everyone agreed it was a victory for civic-mindedness.
Everyone, that is, but municipal workers. They filed a grievance, arguing the bylaw violated their union contract – and won. An arbitrator recently ruled that the regulation amounted to an illegal contracting out of a union task. The city, after all, could not make citizens sweep without pay.
Montreal's cols bleus, as the city's “blue collar” workers are known, never fail to live up to their hard-won reputation for work avoidance and basic unco-operativeness. Indeed, the bylaw would never have been passed in the first place if the cols bleus had been doing their job.
This Montreal street-sweeping saga may help explain why Quebec comes up dead last in the Fraser Institute's latest ranking of North American labour market “flexibility.” With the highest rate of unionization on the continent, at 40.2 per cent of all workers, and the second-highest minimum wage relative to per capita gross domestic product, Quebec has chosen a policy prescription for job market sclerosis. Or, at least it has in the Fraser Institute's pro-free-market world view.
And just which province or state has got it right in the Vancouver-based think tank's mind?
That would be Mississippi, among others. The Magnolia State is one of 22 with right-to-work laws. Such legislation allows workers to choose whether or not to join a union and make financial contributions to it. In Mississippi, the state constitution has made the closed-shop illegal since 1890.
That hostility toward unions is one of the reasons only 7.8 per cent of Mississippians belong to one. Mississippi has no state minimum wage, either. Yet, you'd be hard-pressed to argue that workers or the state economy are better off because of these “flexible” labour laws.
Just ask the Mississippi Poultry Workers for Equality and Respect, a group that's been combatting abusive labour practices in an industry dominated by underpaid blacks and Latinos. Just ask the 600 workers in Laurel who were hauled off to prison last week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after a raid on an electronics plant there.
What has all this labour “flexibility” meant for the Mississippi job market? Employment grew at an annual rate of 0.3 per cent in the five years to 2007, putting Mississippi in 58th spot out of 60 states and provinces. Employment in union-crazy Quebec grew at an average rate of 1.5 per cent, good enough to earn it a 21st place ranking.
To be sure, a few Quebec unions have priced themselves out of the market with wage and benefit expectations that bear no relationship to their productivity or competitiveness. But that is the fault of short-sighted union leadership, not of unionization in and of itself.
What's more, the Fraser Institute study ignores some of the most important factors determining the state of the job market, such as education levels, population growth and economic diversity or lack thereof.
Then there's oil. But can you really say that Alberta has the “best-performing” job market in North America, when wage inflation means signing bonuses for burger flippers? When employee loyalty only lasts as long as it takes to get a better offer? When high-school students calculate that it's more lucrative to drop out than get a diploma?
Similarly, can you really label Quebec's job market an underperformer when it has nearly closed a yawning gap with Ontario? Three decades ago, the unemployment rate in Quebec consistently topped Ontario's by about five percentage points. In July, the difference was a mere point – 7.4 per cent versus 6.4 per cent. What bridged the chasm? Economists regularly point to education. Quebeckers now graduate – from high school, college and university – in equal proportions to Ontarians.
Desjardins economist Hélène Bégin recently predicted that the unemployment rate in Quebec could soon fall to 5 per cent, as slow population growth and retiring boomers cause the work force to shrink. But that would not in itself signify a healthy labour market any more than the rate of unionization would constitute an obstacle to one.
Ask Barack Obama. He promises to adopt a Quebec-style “card check” system under which workers can form a bargaining unit if a simple majority sign union cards. Current law requires a secret ballot. Mr. Obama's reform could reverse the three-decade-long decline in the rate of unionization south of the border, where it stands at 13.6 per cent.
Would that be such a bad thing? Somewhere between Montreal's cols bleus and those Mississippi poultry workers, there has to be a happy medium. The Fraser Institute hasn't found it.
Fraser Institute's labour ‘flexibility' too hard and fast
KONRAD YAKABUSKI
September 4, 2008 at 6:00 AM EDT
When the downtown Montreal borough of Ville Marie passed a bylaw last year requiring shopkeepers to keep the sidewalk in front of their stores clean, everyone agreed it was a victory for civic-mindedness.
Everyone, that is, but municipal workers. They filed a grievance, arguing the bylaw violated their union contract – and won. An arbitrator recently ruled that the regulation amounted to an illegal contracting out of a union task. The city, after all, could not make citizens sweep without pay.
Montreal's cols bleus, as the city's “blue collar” workers are known, never fail to live up to their hard-won reputation for work avoidance and basic unco-operativeness. Indeed, the bylaw would never have been passed in the first place if the cols bleus had been doing their job.
This Montreal street-sweeping saga may help explain why Quebec comes up dead last in the Fraser Institute's latest ranking of North American labour market “flexibility.” With the highest rate of unionization on the continent, at 40.2 per cent of all workers, and the second-highest minimum wage relative to per capita gross domestic product, Quebec has chosen a policy prescription for job market sclerosis. Or, at least it has in the Fraser Institute's pro-free-market world view.
And just which province or state has got it right in the Vancouver-based think tank's mind?
That would be Mississippi, among others. The Magnolia State is one of 22 with right-to-work laws. Such legislation allows workers to choose whether or not to join a union and make financial contributions to it. In Mississippi, the state constitution has made the closed-shop illegal since 1890.
That hostility toward unions is one of the reasons only 7.8 per cent of Mississippians belong to one. Mississippi has no state minimum wage, either. Yet, you'd be hard-pressed to argue that workers or the state economy are better off because of these “flexible” labour laws.
Just ask the Mississippi Poultry Workers for Equality and Respect, a group that's been combatting abusive labour practices in an industry dominated by underpaid blacks and Latinos. Just ask the 600 workers in Laurel who were hauled off to prison last week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after a raid on an electronics plant there.
What has all this labour “flexibility” meant for the Mississippi job market? Employment grew at an annual rate of 0.3 per cent in the five years to 2007, putting Mississippi in 58th spot out of 60 states and provinces. Employment in union-crazy Quebec grew at an average rate of 1.5 per cent, good enough to earn it a 21st place ranking.
To be sure, a few Quebec unions have priced themselves out of the market with wage and benefit expectations that bear no relationship to their productivity or competitiveness. But that is the fault of short-sighted union leadership, not of unionization in and of itself.
What's more, the Fraser Institute study ignores some of the most important factors determining the state of the job market, such as education levels, population growth and economic diversity or lack thereof.
Then there's oil. But can you really say that Alberta has the “best-performing” job market in North America, when wage inflation means signing bonuses for burger flippers? When employee loyalty only lasts as long as it takes to get a better offer? When high-school students calculate that it's more lucrative to drop out than get a diploma?
Similarly, can you really label Quebec's job market an underperformer when it has nearly closed a yawning gap with Ontario? Three decades ago, the unemployment rate in Quebec consistently topped Ontario's by about five percentage points. In July, the difference was a mere point – 7.4 per cent versus 6.4 per cent. What bridged the chasm? Economists regularly point to education. Quebeckers now graduate – from high school, college and university – in equal proportions to Ontarians.
Desjardins economist Hélène Bégin recently predicted that the unemployment rate in Quebec could soon fall to 5 per cent, as slow population growth and retiring boomers cause the work force to shrink. But that would not in itself signify a healthy labour market any more than the rate of unionization would constitute an obstacle to one.
Ask Barack Obama. He promises to adopt a Quebec-style “card check” system under which workers can form a bargaining unit if a simple majority sign union cards. Current law requires a secret ballot. Mr. Obama's reform could reverse the three-decade-long decline in the rate of unionization south of the border, where it stands at 13.6 per cent.
Would that be such a bad thing? Somewhere between Montreal's cols bleus and those Mississippi poultry workers, there has to be a happy medium. The Fraser Institute hasn't found it.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Wal-Town – A Documentary Recommendation
Wal-Town – A Documentary Recommendation
In 2004 and 2005, a group of young activists toured Canada, their goal being to inform people and perhaps change their attitude about Walmart’s presence in their community. While their mission was not altogether successful, and the first part of the film has a rather sluggish pace, probably owing to the frustrating indifference with which they are largely met, the film succeeds because of the questions the viewer is left to ponder.
By now, probably everyone knows some of the reasons many people oppose the Walmart behemoth:
• Its predatory pricing that has forced a host of manufacturers to move offshore to meet the cost expectations of their biggest buyer.
• Its use of suppliers who regularly abuse human rights and exploit child labor
• Its monumental efforts to prevent the unionization of its employees
• Its driving out of small businesses that often have a very long history in the community
• Its refusal to pay decent wages to its ‘associates’
The film doesn’t shy away from what attracts people to the store – low prices – and the fact that a cross section of people, not just those on limited income, finds ways to stretch their dollars by shopping there. Also, as one of the young activists says, people are not affected emotionally by references to such practices as sweatshop and child labor, since they don’t know anyone personally involved in such exploitation.
However the documentary’s strongest moments occur when some fundamental questions are asked. For example, why can’t a corporation that, if it were a country would be the 22nd largest in the world, choose to share with its workers a tiny amount of its many billions of dollars of profits instead of providing them what is essentially minimum wage, no benefits, and largely part-time employment? Such questions in turn force some of us, especially the more affluent, to question whether our pursuit of bargain pricing is worth encouraging such business models. It was such a question that I asked myself about five years ago after being educated about Walmart by two of my colleagues. Although I claim no special virtue, it was at that point I decided not to patronize the store any longer. This despite the fact that there are few people who enjoy a bargain more than I do.
And yet the purpose of the Wal-Town campaign was not so much to encourage a boycott as it was to educate people, with the ultimate goal, I assume, of bringing consumer scrutiny and pressure to bear on the corporation. Indeed, the documentary really invites us to ask how we define ourselves. Are we consumers first, and citizens second? If not, then we should be mindful of such democratic rights as freedom of association, which includes the right to form a union, simply a banding together of people to try to ensure better wages and working conditions for the collective.
Perhaps one of the most poignant moments of the film is the closing of the Jonquiere, Quebec Walmart as a direct result of a successful union drive. Such a move was an obvious ploy to send a strong chill throughout the Walmart chain to discourage further indulgences in democratic rights. In fact, in December of 2005 the company was found guilty by the Quebec labour board of closing the store to avoid dealing with the unionized workers, not because it was losing money as it had claimed. Compensation for the illegally fired workers was pending.
This is a film that definitely deserves your consideration. Should you wish further information on Wal-Town, or more information on Walmart’s practices, I recommend the following three sites:
http://www.uberculture.org/waltown
http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/facts/
http://www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/stores3.html
In 2004 and 2005, a group of young activists toured Canada, their goal being to inform people and perhaps change their attitude about Walmart’s presence in their community. While their mission was not altogether successful, and the first part of the film has a rather sluggish pace, probably owing to the frustrating indifference with which they are largely met, the film succeeds because of the questions the viewer is left to ponder.
By now, probably everyone knows some of the reasons many people oppose the Walmart behemoth:
• Its predatory pricing that has forced a host of manufacturers to move offshore to meet the cost expectations of their biggest buyer.
• Its use of suppliers who regularly abuse human rights and exploit child labor
• Its monumental efforts to prevent the unionization of its employees
• Its driving out of small businesses that often have a very long history in the community
• Its refusal to pay decent wages to its ‘associates’
The film doesn’t shy away from what attracts people to the store – low prices – and the fact that a cross section of people, not just those on limited income, finds ways to stretch their dollars by shopping there. Also, as one of the young activists says, people are not affected emotionally by references to such practices as sweatshop and child labor, since they don’t know anyone personally involved in such exploitation.
However the documentary’s strongest moments occur when some fundamental questions are asked. For example, why can’t a corporation that, if it were a country would be the 22nd largest in the world, choose to share with its workers a tiny amount of its many billions of dollars of profits instead of providing them what is essentially minimum wage, no benefits, and largely part-time employment? Such questions in turn force some of us, especially the more affluent, to question whether our pursuit of bargain pricing is worth encouraging such business models. It was such a question that I asked myself about five years ago after being educated about Walmart by two of my colleagues. Although I claim no special virtue, it was at that point I decided not to patronize the store any longer. This despite the fact that there are few people who enjoy a bargain more than I do.
And yet the purpose of the Wal-Town campaign was not so much to encourage a boycott as it was to educate people, with the ultimate goal, I assume, of bringing consumer scrutiny and pressure to bear on the corporation. Indeed, the documentary really invites us to ask how we define ourselves. Are we consumers first, and citizens second? If not, then we should be mindful of such democratic rights as freedom of association, which includes the right to form a union, simply a banding together of people to try to ensure better wages and working conditions for the collective.
Perhaps one of the most poignant moments of the film is the closing of the Jonquiere, Quebec Walmart as a direct result of a successful union drive. Such a move was an obvious ploy to send a strong chill throughout the Walmart chain to discourage further indulgences in democratic rights. In fact, in December of 2005 the company was found guilty by the Quebec labour board of closing the store to avoid dealing with the unionized workers, not because it was losing money as it had claimed. Compensation for the illegally fired workers was pending.
This is a film that definitely deserves your consideration. Should you wish further information on Wal-Town, or more information on Walmart’s practices, I recommend the following three sites:
http://www.uberculture.org/waltown
http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/facts/
http://www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/stores3.html
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