Support Building Maintenance Workers at TD Centre

CEP has asked LabourStart to run the following campaign. Show your support, follow the link at the end of this post.

Cadillac Fairview Corporation (CF) is a huge real estate corporation that owns several landmark properties in Toronto. CF locked out 61 building maintenance workers at the Toronto Dominion Centre on 14 June 2009. Prior to the lockout CF's Final Offer was aimed at destroying the Union.

Their proposals intended to silence the Local Union Representatives, eliminate the current employee complement and undermine the CEP's legal bargaining rights. They wanted our members with an average of over 20 years of service to reapply for their jobs and accept a new probationary period. They wanted to pick and choose who they would keep and discharge those they no longer wanted without just cause; they wanted to eliminate older workers, get rid of employees with disabilities, and rid themselves of anyone who stood up to them. On July 14, 2009 CF announced it was terminating all of its employees in maintenance positions at the TD Centre in Toronto.

The Union has filed charges of Bad Faith Bargaining and the Ontario Labour Relations Board commenced hearings on 31 July 2009. That process will take time, meanwhile the workers are without their jobs. Help us get them back now by sending a protest message to CF.

Takes 30 seconds or less: CLICK HERE

New Guide to Union Blogging Out

The 2009 edition of John Wood's TIGMOO Guide to Union Blogging is now available. See the graphic link down a bit on the right.

2009 Labour Photo of the Year Contest

Last year, LabourStart sponsored the first-ever international Labour Photo of the Year competition. It was a huge success. Photographers from all over the world submitted their pictures and a panel of expert judges selected a short-list of the five best. Our readers then voted in their thousands to choose the winning photo.

Today we're very pleased to announce the second annual Labour Photo of the Year. We're doing this because we want to encourage and recognize the talents of worker-photographers around the world, and at the same time to encourage them to tell the stories of our struggles in photos. The deadline for submissions of photos is 30 September.

Full details are HERE.