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March 23, 2002
OPSEU protects Factor 80 to Nov. 30
OPSEU has arranged to extend Factor 80 early retirement until Nov. 30.
Despite what you may have heard from the government, the employer had no role in this.
In fact, if we accept the government’s pension proposals, OPSEU will never be able to do this again.
Here is the truth about how this happened.
In the final hours of OPS bargaining, the OPS team realized that they were being forced toward a strike.
The Factor 80 window was scheduled to close on March 31, so there was a risk that this might happen during the strike.
To protect members, the team called on the union’s Executive Board.
The board approved a motion asking the OPSEU Pension Trust to use the members’ share of the actuarial surplus to extend the window until the end of November.
Under the trust agreement, both sponsors - union and employer - must sign amendments to the plan. The government was required to sign this change. Had they not signed, we could have forced them to sign through arbitration.
However, the language the government has on the table would give them a veto over any such amendments in the future.
One of the big reasons we are on strike right now is to retain our control over our pensions.
The government’s propaganda makes it sound as if it has given us something. Nothing could be further from the case. In reality, they want to take it away forever.
We can do this now, but if they get their way in bargaining we will not be able to do it again.
Fair and reasonable? Huh!
The government has probably spent close to $500,000 to run a bunch of newspaper ads touting its “ fair and reasonable offer.”
That would be for one day. That’s a lot of money to promote an offer members have already rejected by a seven to one margin. Why are they doing it?
• They don’t think their message is getting out.
• They want to keep the focus on money.
• They want us to react.
But this strike is NOT about money.
• It’s about the arrogant attempt to dictate what we do with our share of the pension surplus.
• It’s about a fair deal for unclassifed staff.
• It’s about rebuilding a public service so we can protect the citizens of Ontario.
And as for the ad budget? It would be better spent resolving the dispute, than flogging a dead offer.
Members have been writing letters to MPPs and editors. Here’s another item well worth taking pen in hand.
See Page 3 of this issue for excerpts from OPSEU correspondents.
The news from everywhere
Bald is beautiful
Local 230’s Patti Arrowsmith is an essential court worker in Kitchener. Thursday, faced with dress code details, she went the extra mile and shaved her head.
“She looked beautiful, I am told by many, including some of our customers,” reports Staff Rep Kerry Gennings.
The good and bad in Walkerton
Local 225 president Gerry Hope approached the Tim Horton’s for a donation of day-old donuts to the striking picketers.
Peggy, manager of the Tim Horton’s in Walkerton, told Gerry it was corporate policy:
1. to NOT support strikes; and
2. to feed day-old donuts to the cows
On the other hand, Lorri Monk of Lorri’s Hairstyling offers a third off all haircuts for striking members.
So Local 225 will be stylish and svelte when the strike ends.
They’re challenging other members to suggest the least likely places for OPSEU picket signs in Walkerton. “We will choose the top ten sites and take pictures of our signs in front of them.” Choose your challenge from the town’s website: www.town.walkerton.on.ca
More gourmet
Got to be a Newfoundlander!
Local 702 member Steve Winsor treated the Sioux Lookout line to capelin (very small salty little fishies).
Verdict from the mainlanders:
Would go well with suds.
Where’s a New Brunswicker to break out the dulse?
IBEW support stops traffic
Cassandra Packard of Local 340 reports terrific support from the Oshawa PUC Hydro workers for their line at the Ministry of Finance
Members of Local 636 IBEW, drive by every day and honk their air horns to help raise the spirits of the picketers.
“On Wednesday, they stopped traffic in two lanes of Centre Street – two of the big Hydro trucks and three vans – stopped right there on the road and honked continually for about three minutes.
“When they went back to their yard they came over on foot with their Local union signs and stayed with us for about 20 minutes.”
Music for spring
And Nicole Miller of Local 601, Sault Ste. Marie Probation and Parole, is part of a band – Topaze – that has just released its first CD.
“I have been employed with the Ministry for 10 years and enjoy my job tremendously. This strike is not slowing me down one bit.”
The CD, Comme au printemps was released the first day of spring.
High tech strikers
The 1996 strike may have been the first big labour dispute where cell phones were a factor.
The website and even newer technology are key factors now.
At the E.C. Drury School for the Deaf, Local 223 president JoAnne Goure, herself deaf, needed to find a way to contact and communicate with deaf/hearing impaired picket captains and worksite staff. She leased several Blackberry pagers from Bell Mobility to relay email messages and
report any incidents.
With the Blackberries, she can contact staff reps and mobilizers for advice.
JoAnne is fortunate also to have OPSEU members who are sign interpreters to assist in other communications. Thanks to Local 223 steward Maryann Chmiel for the report.
Fortune cookie
The March 21 FRONTlines challenged readers to come up with a cookie fortune for Mike Harris.
This from Retired Correctional Officer T. K. McKay: “You are NOT interested in public service.”
They don’t understand cold up there
Local 713 President Mark Roddick reports a little action near Thunder Bay. About 25 members of Region 7 rallied at 6 a.m. to shut down the bridge construction at Kakabeka Provincial Park, 25 km west of town.
“The weather that morning was clear and a little brisk (-32 with a 15k wind).The welders and constuction workers respected our lines and took the day off. Thanks brothers!”
All the members stayed for the entire length of their shift. Comments on the weather? “Just a little taste of 96,” from the taciturn. “Put some more wood in that damn barrel,” a more common emotion.
Snippets:
Excerpts from member letters to editors and MPPs
Paying for Performance
I find the coverage of the OPSEU strike by syndicated columnist Christina Blizzard to be divisive, alarmist and not at all constructive.
In “Here’s the deal” (Chronicle Journal, March 16), she treats us to an anonymous rant from a “government insider” supposedly “close to the negotiations”. Who is he/she and what is his/her role? Instead of providing factual arguments she has chosen to cloak suspicions and rumours in
language designed to further polarize an already emotional situation.
I am disappointed to see this type of content in a paper that generally offers good quality information. If Ms. Blizzard was working under the terms of the “Pay for Performance” proposal in the rejected offer, she would not be getting any bonus this month.
– Charles Faust
OPSEU Local 724
Here’s the deal, Christina
In your commentary “Here’s the deal - Government insider reveals the offer OPSEU turned down,” you quote a government insider who is close to the negotiations.
Why is this “informed source” unidentified?...
I have reviewed your coverage of the OPSEU strike. Could it be that newspapers dominated by two media moguls are unable to present a balanced review of issues involving labour and management? In the case of this strike, a balance between workers and this Government, actions by a
government who from day one has attacked workers, educators, health care, the marginalized in society....
We see what effect this government has had on the Province of Ontario every day in our jobs. So as transparent as your editorial positions are, there are many people who just can’t believe a word that comes from any government source.
– Gino Franche,
President, Local 130
Deeply troubling
I have chosen to make my personal stand against this government with the good people working at the Whitby Jail near my home. In the past week, I have had the privilege of looking into their world, and understanding their plight. They work in a hostile environment, the likes of which
I am glad I will never have to enter.
I witnessed something there that troubled me deeply. A young woman, perhaps in her mid 20s, arrived at the picket line in a taxi, with bedding and a suitcase.
She identified herself to the picket captain as a manager in human resources. She has been sent here to work. During her 20-minute wait at the picket line she began to cry. She was afraid of what was going to happen inside the jail. Personally, I have no idea what will happen. Nobody
does. But one thing I know for sure is that if there were a violent outbreak, she would be more of a liability than an asset.
It saddens me that the government of Ontario, those we have elected, and trust with our public safety, has chosen this person to work the front line in the most dangerous of environments.
– Andrew Virtue
Local 223
Ministry of Education
A patient man
D. Jennings is one of many members who has written Tory MPPs about the strike.
He suggested a fair offer would be half what the MPPs are getting.
Steve Gilchrist, the Tory MPP for Scarborough East replied that that would be 1.5 per cent a year, as the big 30 per cent raise doesn’t hit until after the next election
To which Jennings replied:
“OK, so let’s call it even, if I agree to a 1.5 per cent increase until after the next election and you win, will you give me the other 34.5 per cent? I’m willing to wait!”
Let go of dreams
To Ted McMeeken, Liberal MPP, Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Aldershot
Thanks to the Conservative Government I will no longer be providing or serving the public. I will be losing my job. This is the fifth time I have been surplus.
Since the Conservative Government came into power I have let go of dreams that no longer belong to me.
Now permanent jobs become part time, temporary. My last job has gone to a Workfare recipient.
Pretty soon the only people left to support the economy will be the rich, because the rest of us won’t have a decent job or no job.
– Theresa McCool
Local 520
Economic boom!
Tory doom-and-gloomers wrong again
Over the last six months, Ontarians have been bombarded by Conservative and business voices claiming that a) Ontario was in a recession; b) Ontario was broke; c) Ontario was going to have to cut public services to avoid a big provincial deficit.
The Chicken Littles were wrong, wrong, wrong.
This week, Andrew Pyle, a senior economist at the Bank of Nova Scotia, said the Canadian economy would grow at an annual rate of four or five per cent in the first quarter of 2002. Ted Carmichael, chief economist at J.P. Morgan Securities, says the economy will grow at that rate for
the first half of the year. Patti Croft, portfolio manager with Sceptre Investments Counsel Ltd., says that “The market is of the view that this is going to be a strong recovery.”
Manufacturing jobs are up on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. Exports are up. Even business travel, devastated by Sept. 11, will grow by $1 billion in Canada this year.
Growth of four or five per cent is very strong. That’s on a par with the boom years of 1997 and 1998.
The Ontario government never had a decent excuse for saying it couldn’t afford contract improvements for OPSEU members – after all, they could afford $2.2 billion in corporate tax breaks this year – but now even their supporters don’t buy the idea of a weak economy.
Lines for Tories
from Loraine Menard, Local 468
I know a jerk by the name of Mike
We’re here to tell him to take a hike
He’s got a buddy by the name of Eves
Nobody knows what plans he weaves
Little lady they call Wittmer
Can anybody be any dimmer?
Tony Clement don’t stand a chance
Cause he can’t sing and he can’t dance
Flaherty wants us all to fail
So he can haul our ass to jail
Tsubouchi wants to feed us tuna
Tell him to stuff it to the big Kahuna
Can’t forget Chris Stockwell
He’s already told us to go to hell
Brothers and Sisters in OPSEU
We ain’t gonna take it and it’s up to you.
OSSTF District 18
We have colleagues in the public sector who are on strike. They are fighting the same employer who is behind our problems. Their fight is our fight... for the protection of public services. I want to encourage members to do more than respect picket lines. I encourage members to make
an effort to walk a line or bring them a coffee or a sweet.
Job security and a decent wage increase: this is all anyone in the public sector wants. It’s what we want for ourselves and what we hope they get.
Support our public sector colleagues.
– Noella English
Provincial Councillor
Public supports OPSEU strikers
Frank MacEachern of the Cornwall Standard Freeholder did a coffee shop poll on the second day of the strike and found a lot of support.
Most people he interviewed supported the right of workers to strike.
“They should be allowed to go out on strike,” said Ola Pickup as she sat with her husband, Nick, and another couple, Thomas and May Goodhew, in the Cornwall Square food court. “They should be allowed to get the big raises like the (politicians).”
The comment about the big raises for politicians was a point raised by a number of people who pointed out the massive raises federal politicians gave themselves last year through a committee they appointed themselves.
A former non-union construction worker backed the OPSEU members.
“It’s supposed to be a free country,” said Hollis Vaillancourt. “If the government can give themselves 30 per cent raises, why can’t the workers ask for more.” “If it wasn’t for unions you would have people like (Ontario Premier Mike) Harris paying only the minimum wage.”
Brian Long was the lone person who voiced a dissenting opinion.
“The public shouldn’t be held ransom by any group, whether it’s teachers or anyone else.”
Check the web: www.opseu.org has the latest on everything.
Original approved for publication by Leah Casselman, President
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