The National Rep's Prayer

Grant Me, O Lord, the genius to explain to my fellow members the policies and plans of our great Union, even though no one explains them to me.

Give me the understanding that I may forgive the apathetic member, curb the over-ambitious and accept the views of the member who does nothing until I have done something and then tells me how I should have done it.

O Lord, make me formidable in debate, logical in argument, fearless in confrontation. A lawyer, actor, mathematician, sage, philosopher, sociologist and economist; pleasing, cajoling, threatening, belabouring so that I may make the best of a good case and a good case from no case at all.

Teach me, O Lord, to stand at all times with both feet firmly on the ground – even when I haven’t a leg to stand on.

[added] Grant me the patience to flatter, pander, and support our great leaders, to put words in their mouths and strategies in their heads that they may shine for our members. And remind me always, oh lord, of your greatest blessing - that I have job security while they do not. (Anonymous).

Lord, I am a National Rep. In your infinite wisdom, see my need for all these things and in your mercy, grant them to me.

And, when I have them, Lord – MOVE OVER! 

[If you have any additional verses you would like to suggest, please leave them as comments here or, if you wish to remain anonymous, e-mail them to derek.blackadder@gmail.com]

With thanks to Sister Stringer...

Elevator Strike Solidarity Rally Thursday!

Urgent Action Call Out – Ottawa Info-Picket in Support of Striking Porter Airlines Workers

Where and When:

Assembly point is the Human Rights monument (northeast corner of Elgin and Lisgar) 

Event begins at 7:10am, Thursday, May 23rd.

Ultimate destination -- Ottawa City Hall, 110 Laurier Ave W

Background:

Thursday, May 23rd will be Day 133 of a strike by 22 courageous aircraft fuellers at Toronto based Porter Airlines.  The group, members of COPE Local 343, earns wages of $12 and $13 per hour, and they are proposing health and safety training and equipment for their members.  The company has offered paltry increases of zero for some, and 25 cents per hour for others, with nothing at all to address the group’s health and safety concerns.  Porter Airlines is led by CEO and majority owner Robert Deluce, who clearly aims to bust the recently-formed union, and establish poverty wages and rotten working conditions as their competitive advantage over other airlines.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson is marking Day 133 of this strike by picking a side in this dispute – and he has picked the wrong side.  Rather than join the growing list of mainstream political leaders respecting the COPE-called Porter Airlines boycott, the Mayor has outraged local residents by inviting Porter’s millionaire CEO to speak to a crony, $45-a-plate breakfast with Ottawa’s Chamber of Commerce.  (See http://www.obj.ca/FlyingPage/35 for breakfast details)  It is speculated that the Mayor may be hoping to persuade Deluce to re-locate his union-busting operation to Ottawa.

The Workers Action Working Group of Solidarity Against Austerity is joining the growing grassroots campaign in support of these striking workers.  We invite all those interested in standing up for workers, and challenging these predatory business practices, to join us for a Solidarity Information Picket at the site of this crony breakfast – Ottawa’s City Hall.  We will gather at the Human Rights Monument at the corner of Elgin St. and Lisgar St. at 7:10am on Thursday, May 23rd.

Statement from the Striking Workers at Porter Airlines:

We are 22 Fuellers at Porter FBO, a division of Porter Airlines at Billy Bishop Airport.  We have been on strike since January 10th, trying to secure our first contract.

We formed a union last year because Porter has a history of sloppy health and safety practices.  We did not have proper protective gear and we were dangerously understaffed.

Jet fuel seeped through our gloves and one new father broke both his wrists after falling from a plane.  He was fueling a float plane by himself, a job that safely requires two.

We want to make improvements to the workplace so that it’s not a revolving door of workers, constantly needing to train new staff.  When you don’t even have access to a washroom at the fuel farm, or work 9 hours without a lunch break, people get fed up and leave.

We start at $12.00/hour and average around $13.00/h. Porter offered nothing to about half the workers and $0.25/h to the others.

Once the strike started Porter hired scabs for between $12.50 and $15.50/hour.  This is fundamentally not a dispute about how much Porter can pay, but about whether we will be the first Porter workers to strike and bargain a contract at the Island Airport.

Our message:

Boycott Porter Airlines! Corporate union busters not welcome in Ottawa!

Bring your pots and pans, let’s make some noise!

For more information on the Porter Airlines strike, see:  http://www.dontflyporter.com For more information on Solidarity Against Austerity, see: http://maydayottawa.ca

Porter Airlines Strike: It Just Gets Worse

Remember those Porter Airlines workers who have been on strike since 10 January?  How the employer was offering tiny or no wage increases and no improvements to the workers’ (and by extension all our) safety?

To that anti-union behaviour you can add the fact that Porter is listed as a user of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (see  HERE). As is now well-known, thanks to a few brave RBC employees, this program allows employers to import workers rather than recruit Canadian residents.  More importantly, those workers arrive and stay at the whim of their employer, making the abuse of their rights, including their right to organize, inevitable.

Any which way you cut it, Porter is a bad employer.  But it gets even worse.  Adding insult to injury, a major investor in Porter is OMERS, the pension plan for municipal and school board workers in Ontario.  Workers in the plan and their unions don’t control OMERS, so OMERS is happy to take union members’ money and invest in anti-union companies like Porter.

In just a few seconds you can send a protest message to OMERS telling them what you think of their investment in this company and asking that OMERS put pressure on Porter to behave reasonably and return to the table with the intent of reaching a reasonable settlement.

Just go HERE.  And please: tell you friends and encourage them to sign-on to this campaign.  It is about the Porter strike, but it’s also about how union member’s pension money is invested and why we need to control our own pensions.

Campaigning Online - and Winning

LabourStart's first book draws on our years of running online campaigns for trade unions around the world.  Copies just US$4.99.

Over the last decade and more, LabourStart has run dozens of online campaigns in partnership with unions around the world.

Support for those campaigns has helped get union reps reinstated, get activists out of prison, give support to striking and locked-out workers, and mobilise international support to fight against the union-busting designs of governments and multinationals. 

The inspiring story of those victories can now be told, which is why we're very pleased to announce the publication today of LabourStart's first book - Campaigning Online and Winning: How LabourtStart's ActNOW Campaigns Are Making Unions Stronger.

To order your copy go HERE.

Labour Wikipedia Initiative

My suggested trade union initiative to ensure an accurate representation of the labour movement on Wikipedia has gotten a bit of attention.  Not likely much action, but a bit of chat and who knows?


Here's the original article as it appears on the Our Times website right HERE.  And HERE is  what ACORN founder Wade Rathke has to say on his Chief Organizers Blog.

The right, especially in the US, seems also to have glommed onto the proposal.  See HERE and HERE.

Death Factories in Pakistan

Last week 314 (and counting) garment workers died horribly in two factory fires in Pakistan.  They were making the clothes and the shoes that any one of us can buy, that many of us wear - branded with the names of familiar designers.  The majority of the dead were young women who died trying to use doors and windows that had been blocked by their employer.

By putting pressure on the Pakistani government and the labels that contract with these factories we, you and I, can help make a difference.  We can help make certain that no worker, no matter where they work or what they do, ever gets killed by their job.

Start HERE.  Take 30 seconds and send a protest message in memory of those who have died, in solidarity with their families, and to fight for safety of the still living.

Send your message HERE.