American Steelworkers Bring Picket Line North
Monday, September 10, 2012 @ 12:31 PM
USW International Office rep Shawn Gilchrist, and Local 624 member Mike Badden spread the word about their fight with Husky in the U.S.
Prince George, B.C.- Information pickets are up today at the Husky gas station on Central West as visiting members from the United Steelworkers Union in Ohio bring their labour dispute to Canada.
More than 200 workers at the Husky Refinery in Lima Ohio have been on an unfair labour practice strike since May 25th . That USW local ( 624) in Lima, has filed more than 35 unfair labour practice allegations against Husky and believes the company is trying to undermine wages and standards for all oil industry workers.
Mike Badden is one of the workers from Lima who is involved in the information picket line. “We travelled all this way because we don’t feel Husky is bargaining in all fairness with the employees in Lima, and we want the people of Canada to know exactly that, if you pride yourself with the way you treat your folks up here, all we’re asking is the same kind of treatment at home.”
Badden says so far, he feels he has been getting a positive response from passers by “ A lot of people are honkin’ a lot of people are wavin’, showing their support and we’ve only been here a real short time, so, so far, so good.”
Badden, fellow Lima Ohio workers Barb Elrod and Tony Young-Miller are joined by USW International Office rep Shawn Gilchrist for this week long mission to spread the word. The group will be at the gate of the Husky refinery on P.G. Pulpmill Road later today to share the information with refinery workers.
USW Local 624 workers have full support of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union whose National President Dave Coles says will stand with the Lima workers “and we plan to make sure Husky gets the message.”
Comments
Good strategy on their part.
Labour should start to think and organize globally. Instead of continuing the race to the bottom, we should be ensuring that workers are raised up everywhere. It is the only way to counter the multinational corporations. They (MNC) continually state global competition as a reason to slash wages, benefits, and working conditions in North America.
Somebody has to stand up to Big Oil, everyday we see oil companies in collusion with price at the pump. All the while our government stands by and plays the stupid card.
Where is the local manager/rep for the Steelworkers here in the north? To busy? Why is there no news from him? Solidarity?
I would have expected him to be with these men… ;)
Oil company’s don’t have to collude with each other, they sell a product that we can no longer live without,
They can charge what ever they want people will still buy it
However, they still collude, and nothing is done.
“Labour should start to think and organize globally”
Head over to China and get started then.
I think that all unionized workers should make at least six figure salaries, regardless of how much effort they put into their jobs, or what they contribute to the corporation’s bottom line.
We all know that corporations are evil, and are out to oppress the working man. Unions protect workers from that oppression by demanding high wages, backed up by the continual threat or work stoppages and strikes.
Besides, the more money a unionized worker makes, the more he or she pays in taxes. More money paid in taxes means more revenue to government, which means more money for unionized public sector workers, which means more taxes, etc.
The economics are elegantly simple and effective – pay unionized workers more and we all benefit.
So Rocky how much should union workers get? How much to the shareholders? how much to the CEO’s?
“The economics are elegantly simple and effective – pay unionized workers more and we all benefit.”
I’m speechless.
I say the union workers should get all of it seamutt. They’re the ones doing 100% of the work, so they should get 100% of the net income.
The shareholders are simply puppets of their oppressive corporate masters. They (the shareholders) have been tricked into investing their own money, with the unreasonable expectation that they’ll see some return on that investment.
Return on investment is profit, and profit is evil.
Caterpillar just shut down it’s Canadian factory that makes locomotives, and moved production to a brand new factory in the United States. Those were unionized workers that lost their jobs to a region that supports workers who don’t unionize. I’ll try to have a little sympathy for these Americans.
“Where is the local manager/rep for the Steelworkers here in the north? To busy? Why is there no news from him? Solidarity?”
Good Ole Frankie is doing city work now guesswhat. So yes he is too busy!
As usual, some of the usual flamers are at it on this site.
Yep, burger flippers and greedy business overseers they be!
I support these guys. Husky has abused this city at the pumps to a level of criminality… all the profits go to their Chinese ownership infrastructure investments overseas and not even back into Canada.
Comments for this article are closed.