CUPE launches ad campaign to avert strike in public schools

Posted on August 26, 2013 by CanucksBanter

Aug 25, 2013 http://cupe.ca http://cupe.bc.ca/

BURNABY—CUPE’s education workers will launch a radio and television advertising campaign on Monday focused on building support for the union members’ work to keep BC’s schools clean, safe, and inclusive.

“We’ve made every effort to bargain a fair and reasonable settlement with the employers, but their lack of preparation is threatening to disrupt classes this fall,” said Mark Hancock, CUPE-BC President.

CUPE education workers’ collective agreements throughout the province expired over a year ago. Previous negotiations in spring 2013 were derailed when it became clear that government had not given the BC Public School Employers’ Association (BCPSEA) a mandate to reach a settlement.

BCPSEA is now directly controlled by the BC government, but it was not prepared for the latest round of bargaining in August when talks broke off for a third time.

“If the government doesn’t show a commitment to bargaining, our members will take full-scale job action,” said Colin Pawson, Chair of the BC K-12 Presidents’ Council. “They’re frustrated that we’ve had three false starts to negotiating, and the clock is ticking.”

It has been more than four years since the education assistants, clerical staff, trades, custodians, bus drivers and other education workers represented by CUPE have received a wage increase. Virtually all of the 57 CUPE locals representing education workers have had positive strike votes.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees represents more than 27,000 education BC workers in the K-12 system.

To hear the radio ad, please visit here.

To view the TV ad, please visit here.

For more information, please contact:

Ian Boyko
Communications Representative
604-291-1940 (ext. 262)

CETA talks ‘re-launch’ in September: Council of Canadians to deliver petitions in Brussels

Posted on August 22, 2013 by CanucksBanter

By Stuart Trew August 22, 2013 http://rabble.ca

Council of Canadians’ blog

Between September 17 and 19, the Council of Canadians will hand-deliver a CETA petition, signed by thousands of people in Canada, to Members of the European Parliament in Brussels. The petition focuses on the excessive (FIPA- or NAFTA-like) investor protections built into the proposed Canada-EU deal but it is more broadly designed to protest a deal that few people have heard of, even after four years of negotiations, and that a growing number oppose.

The timing of the petition delivery is especially important after news that the Harper government will “re-launch” the Canada-EU trade talks in early September, with the aim of wrapping up the negotiations before parallel EU-U.S. talks begin in October.

We need your help gathering signatures for the petition so it can have maximum effect in Europe and right here in Canada. There are two easy ways that you can help:

1. Circulate the petition to your friends and, if you’re a member of a union or other organization, to your colleagues as well. If you have a website, consider copying our web action image (top left) and use it on your site to link back to our petition page.

2. If you are holding or attending public events in the next two weeks, you could print off the letter and have people sign it right away. Hard-copy letters can be mailed to our offices at 170 Laurier Avenue West, Ste. 700, Ottawa, Ontario, K1P 5V5.

Council of Canadians Executive Director Garry Neil will travel to Brussels on September 17 to meet with Members of the European Parliament and trade justice allies, and will deliver the petitions at this point. So we would need to have all hard-copy petitions/letters at our head office by Monday, September 16. We will continue to accept online signatures to the petition up to September 17.

Thank you for your help and good luck!

For more information about the Canada-EU deal, visit Canadians.org/CETA

The Council of Canadians is Canada’s largest citizens’ organization, with members and chapters across the country. We work to protect Canadian independence by promoting progressive policies on fair trade, clean water, energy security, public health care, and other issues of social and economic concern to Canadians.

West Coast Domestic Workers’ Association report urges B.C. to protect its foreign workers

Posted on August 14, 2013 by CanucksBanter

by Carlito Pablo on Aug 14, 2013 http://www.straight.com

Even though Canada’s temporary-foreign-worker program comes under federal jurisdiction, provinces have the power to protect labourers, a B.C. lawyer says.

Ai Li Lim is the executive director of the West Coast Domestic Workers’ Association. On August 10, her group presented a report on temporary foreign workers at a well-attended forum at SFU Harbour Centre in downtown Vancouver.

“Yes, it’s a federal immigration program, but once the workers are here in B.C., they have to be—or they are, in theory—supported by B.C. employment standards,” Lim told the Straight during a break at the forum.

In the report, titled Access to Justice for Migrant Workers in B.C., the WCDWA outlined proposals to address “inequalities and gaps” in the program regarding the protection of workers. A number of these involve provincial legislation.

One recommendation is for B.C. to amend its Labour Relations Code to allow sectoral representation for workers in the absence of unions.

Another is for the province to look at Manitoba’s Worker Recruitment and Protection Act. This law provides a registration system for both employers and recruiters. It also prohibits the collection of fees from foreign workers in exchange for recruiters finding employment for them.

Although it is illegal in B.C. to charge workers for placing them in jobs, Lim explained that there are “loopholes” in the B.C. Employment Standards Act that allow recruiters to ask for “advertising” fees.

The WCDWA report also recommended strengthening employment standards to ensure a “more pro-active approach” to enforcement in sectors that rely on migrant labour.

Initial figures from Citizenship and Immigration Canada indicate that in 2012, 49,488 foreign workers arrived in B.C. out of a nationwide total of 213,516, the report noted. This makes the province the second-largest host of temporary workers, after Ontario.

Government bargaining delays threaten to disrupt classes in the fall

Posted on August 13, 2013 by CanucksBanter

From: http://cupe.bc.ca August 13, 2013

BURNABY—Despite assurances that the provincial government was prepared to bargain with CUPE education workers in August, negotiations have broken off indefinitely.

“They called us back to the table. We were ready, they were not. As a result, there is a danger that classes will be disrupted this fall,” said Colin Pawson, Chair of the CUPE BC K-12 Presidents’ Council. “Our committee set aside nearly two weeks to bargain, and we came to the table with ideas for cost savings. The only thing missing was a committed bargaining agent on the employer’s side.”

CUPE education workers’ collective agreements throughout the province expired over a year ago. Settlement talks took place in April 2013 but were derailed when it became clear that government had not given the BC Public School Employers’ Association (BCPSEA) a mandate to reach a settlement. BCPSEA is now directly controlled by government, but is still not in a position to bargain.

“If the government doesn’t show a commitment to bargaining, our members will take full scale job action,” said Pawson. “They’re frustrated that we’ve had three false starts to negotiating, and the clock is ticking.”

Once at the table, CUPE representatives emphasize that a fully-funded wage increase is the solution to ending the bargaining impasse.

It has been more than four years since the education assistants, clerical staff, trades, custodians, bus drivers and other workers represented by CUPE have received a wage increase. Virtually all of the 57 CUPE locals representing education workers have had positive strike votes.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees represents more than 27,000 education BC workers in the K-12 system.

cope491

Aug 13 Government bargaining delays threaten to disrupt classes in the fall.pdf
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Advice for BC NDP: Court the Rich

Posted on August 12, 2013 by CanucksBanter

May election results reveal a surprising new voter bloc for the party.

By Tom Barrett, August 12, 2013, TheTyee.ca

As the B.C. New Democratic Party racks its neural tissues to discover how it blew a 20-point lead in the polls on May 14, it might be happy to learn that the news isn’t all bad.

Sure, the NDP was thumped in an election that everybody expected it to win. But it did make gains in some unexpected places.

Among the very rich, for example.

Final election results show the NDP made some of its biggest gains in some of B.C.’s wealthiest ridings. Ridings like Vancouver-False Creek, where the NDP increased its total by a healthy 3,479 votes over its 2009 showing. Ditto for Vancouver-Fairview (up 2,768 votes) and North Vancouver-Seymour (up 2,343 votes).

All three of those ridings are among the 10 constituencies with the highest median after-tax incomes, according to BC Stats. In fact, six of the 10 ridings where the NDP made its biggest gains May 14 are on that top 10 income list. (The figures, while the latest available for income by constituency, come from the 2006 census and are a bit dated. But heck, a riding that was wealthy in 2006 is probably still doing pretty well today.)

The table below shows the wealthy ridings where the NDP vote increased the most. The margin columns show who won the riding in the last two elections and the winner’s margin as a percentage of the total vote.

Riding	2009 Margin	2013 Margin
Vancouver-False Creek	Lib 28.9	Lib 15.5
Vancouver-Fairview	Lib 4.9	NDP 5.1
North Vancouver-Seymour	Lib 31.8	Lib 18.0
Vancouver-Point Grey	Lib 10.1	NDP 4.4
Surrey-Cloverdale	Lib 32.9	Lib 30.5
West Vancouver-Capilano	Lib 53.0	Lib 44.7

As shown, two of these wealthy ridings, Vancouver-Fairview and Vancouver-Point Grey, abandoned the Liberals for the NDP. And the Liberals’ victory margins fell in all of the other four. Clearly, in B.C. the class war is riddled with quislings.

As the NDP pores over its election flop, there is an obvious message in these numbers: it is time for the NDP to go after the crème de la crème. For whatever reason, British Columbia’s plutocrats are starting to take a shine to the left. New Democrats would be fools to rebuff them.

No big electoral shifts

It’s true that marketing the NDP to the one per cent would present some challenges. The party grassroots would be sure to cause a fuss, and making gains among the economic elite would require a long-term strategy.

Most of the ridings on the table above still boast pretty fat Liberal margins. If the trend from May 14 continues, the NDP won’t capture West Vancouver-Capilano, for example, until the election of 2037.

Still, that kind of long-range thinking might be what’s needed to succeed in B.C. politics. As the graph below shows, things haven’t changed much lately.

Ever since British Columbians recovered from the 2001 Liberal landslide, all the scandals and fevered rhetoric that B.C. politics is famous for have produced bupkis in terms of big electoral shifts.

Even the one bit of movement that shows up on the chart — the uptick in the Conservative vote — is misleading. The Conservatives ran 24 candidates in 2009. They ran 56 official candidates in 2013, plus another four candidates who weren’t listed as Conservatives on the ballot because of a paperwork snafu.

So, while the party’s overall share of the vote went up on May 14, its vote per candidate didn’t do much. In 2009, the Conservatives got 1,435 votes per candidate. In 2013, they got 1,532 votes per official candidate — 1,483 votes per candidate if you include the four “unofficial” Tories.

On the other hand, the other third party, the Greens, saw their share of the total vote stay flat at just over eight per cent. But that masks a remarkable increase.

In 2009, the Greens ran a full slate of 85 candidates. This year, they ran only 61 candidates. The Green vote per candidate jumped to 2,403 from 1,584 — an increase of 52 per cent.

The Green vote more than doubled in seven ridings, all but one of them in southern Vancouver Island.

And, if you’re wondering, while the Greens won their only seat in wealthy Oak Bay-Gordon Head, they didn’t make any real gains in the other most-affluent ridings.

Which still leaves the champagne-slurping fat-cat vote wide open for the NDP to exploit.

Andrew Phillip Chernoff

The Outer Limits To The Inner Depths

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