June 20, 2013 - No. 76

Fight for the Rights of All

Quebec Construction Workers Launch
General Strike

Montreal, June 17, 2013

Fight for the Rights of All
• Quebec Construction Workers Launch General Strike - Pierre Chénier
• Workers Reject Concessions and Defend Their Dignity - Interview, Yves Ouellet, Spokesman, Construction Trade Union Alliance
• End Air Canada's Pension Blackmail - New Horizons
• Second National Day to Uphold Refugees' Right to Health Care

Fight for the Rights of All

Quebec Construction Workers Launch
General Strike

- Pierre Chénier -

The Construction Trade Union Alliance launches strike, June 17, 2013 in Montreal.

On June 17, in the face of attacks on their wages and working conditions, the nearly 175,000 construction workers in Quebec proceeded with a general strike affecting all construction sites in every sector of the industry: industrial, institutional/commercial, residential and civil/road engineering. Picket lines have been set up at major construction projects across Quebec.

The strike is directed at the employers' unacceptable demands for concessions, especially from the Construction Association of Quebec that represents the institutional/commercial and industrial sectors. The strike also seeks to satisfy demands on wages and compensation for travel expenses, which can reach as high as 100 kilometres or more per day. The concessions demanded by employers include changing the time slots when workers must be available for work, working at straight time on Saturday to replace any hours lost during the week due to bad weather, reducing double-time to straight time for the first eight hours of overtime and the demand to increase the mobility of workers across the province rather than hire local workers.

These workers create immense value in the socialized economy and are at the heart of the construction of infrastructure and major public institutions, including for education and health care, as well as large industrial and commercial establishments and for other sectors of the economy. Their role is not recognized by the employers and the authorities responsible. Besides demanding concessions, these forces are permitting the degeneration of health and safety conditions on construction sites where injuries and deaths are considered inevitable collateral damage.

The construction workers are demanding wages and working conditions commensurate with the work they do, and that health and safety conditions be improved. Workers in Quebec and across Canada should strongly support the construction workers and their demands in whatever way possible.

The big construction monopolies seek to degrade the working conditions of construction workers as other monopolies are doing to workers in other sectors. They justify this based on the capital-centred view that workers, who produce all the wealth, are merely a cost of production, and thus the companies require concessions to give them flexibility under so-called unconventional situations. Construction workers are considered the cause of economic hardship for the monopolies while attacking them is supposedly working for the future of the industry.

Consider the comments made during the Employers Council press conference on June 11:

"As the global aluminum industry is in a critical phase around the world, with the price of aluminum below the average cost of production and unprecedented inventories, the Quebec industry, already affected by energy costs, now among the highest in the world, cannot afford to add to this uncertainty by increasing construction costs already exceeding the global average," said Jean Simard, CEO of the Aluminum Association of Canada.

Likewise, Josée Méthot, CEO of the Mining Association of Quebec, stated: "We very much hope that the parties will agree and the proposals to be adopted will reflect the reality of our members who have to deal with unconventional situations, especially for the development of projects in Northern Quebec. In effect, the Quebec Mining Association believes that new agreements should allow for flexibility, particularly in terms of working hours. Our industry operates in a world where the scheduled 40 hours per week, Monday to Friday, are not always possible. Our projects often take place in very remote areas and this must be taken into account in the negotiations.

"Unconventional situations" have been invoked for a long time to attack the just demands of construction workers and to degrade their working conditions. The same pretext is used to prepare conditions for the de-unionization of the industry.

This despicable attempt to lower the standards of living and work of these workers is part of the anti-social offensive of the rich against the workers, and their defence organizations. Workers should support the just struggle and strike of the construction workers on the basis that doing so also defends their own interests -- our security lies in the fight for the rights of all.

Union representatives recently toured Quebec construction sites to give workers an update on negotiations.

All Out to Support the Quebec Construction Workers!
Employers Must Immediately Withdraw Demands for Concessions and
Meet the Workers' Demands!

(Photos: CSN, FTQ)

Workers Reject Concessions and
Defend Their Dignity

- Interview, Yves Ouellet, Spokesman, Construction Trade Union Alliance -

TML: What are the main issues in this conflict?

Yves Ouellet: Two months ago the employers filed their demands. The Construction Association of Quebec (ACQ) demanded a whole series of concessions. Other employers' associations also had demands. Those fell away quietly one after the other, but not those of the ACQ.

One of these concessions is to extend the time slot for the workday which is currently from 6:30 am to 5:00 pm, to 5:30 am to 7:00 pm. They aren't asking us to work more hours per week but to work our hours within these hours. It doesn't make sense. We have demands for a balance between work and family life but they want to bring in our members at 5:30 am in order to be more productive. Quebec construction workers are among the most productive in the world. They are also human beings in their own right who have families and who are entitled to a family life.

They also asked us to give up being paid the first eight hours of overtime at double-time and receive time-and-a-half instead. They are demanding increased provincial mobility, to bring a greater number of workers across Quebec into regions other than their own. We told them no, we will not sacrifice our workers in the regions. They demanded that if time is lost due to bad weather during a weekday that our workers make it up on Saturday at straight time. Now they say it could be done on a voluntary basis. In the construction industry, there's no such thing as voluntary. They will tell the worker, "If you don't come on Saturday, don't come back."

TML: How did it go at the negotiating table?

YO: We've been negotiating for two months. In early May, the mediators appointed by the Labour Minister [Agnès Maltais] decided not to extend their mandate. The Minister then said she would still give us mediators at the table, this time as facilitators to assist with negotiations. The ACQ said no and instead of negotiating it conducted a tour to get a lockout mandate. During that time there wasn't always an offer on the table. The ACQ's first offer was obtained Saturday, [June 15] 36 hours before the June 17 deadline. We were offered something in the range of a one per cent wage increase per year! It's a total lack of respect. In the institutional/commercial sector, we were told that if we accept concessions they would offer us one per cent, 1.6 per cent and two per cent per year. Take it or leave it.

We told them that our workers had already voted 90 per cent for a strike mandate against these concessions and that their offer was not a basis for negotiation. So we told them to call us when they had something acceptable to the workers to put on the table. It is clear they wanted us to go on strike -- it was either accept the concession or there is no deal.

TML: You are both fighting against concessions and making demands that will improve wages and working conditions.

YO: We want our workers to maintain their purchasing power. We want to look at the issue of expenses. Our problem is that our workers can change worksites dozens of times in a year, they can't move to be near their place of work. It is common for us to have to drive more than 100 km every day to get to work and back.

The point to be understood is that we could not negotiate with the employers. For them, it is either accept concessions or else there is no negotiation, no agreement.

The employers were told to forget their grocery list of concessions. What we have, we negotiated in previous years, no doubt in exchange for something else at that time. They took what we gave them and now they want to take back what we won in exchange. It's a total lack of respect for workers.

TML: What do you want to say in conclusion?

YO: We're facing the right-wing, without a doubt. Perhaps they see this as a good opportunity for them because they say that if we strike we will harm the image of the construction industry, that the industry's image is already in bad shape and that we'll make it worse with a strike. Maybe we don't watch the same television but when I listen to the Charbonneau Commission [investigating corruption in the construction industry] I don't see any workers. It's not workers who are hurting the industry's image. We are told that a strike will harm the image and be costly to the industry, but there has been hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud and it is not the workers who committed this fraud. They try to blame the workers. These people are so arrogant they never feel guilty about anything.

This is an important struggle in which we are engaged. We're no longer dealing with negotiations. Now what they want is to take what we have. They're demanding concessions and it's not just in the construction industry -- we see it all across Quebec and Canada. They want to break collective agreements and make the workers out to be thieves. According to them, negotiations mean imposing concessions on us. We cannot let it pass. We are not just fighting for ourselves.

(Translated from original French by TML.)

End Air Canada's Pension Blackmail

- New Horizons* -

Blackmail: to extort money from (a person) by the use of threats. - Dictionary.com

Employees at Air Canada are becoming increasingly concerned about the state of Air Canada's pension plans and, of course, by extension about their right to a secure and dignified retirement. The uncertainty has been fuelled by Air Canada's public statements and the monopoly media campaign against any defined benefit pensions that have been won by the workers over the years in exchange for sacrificing their immediate share of the added value they produce. If we look at Air Canada's history of dealing with the employees' pensions, there is little evidence to defend its proclamations of concern about the sustainability of the pensions.

Air Canada Workers and Retirees Must Organize to Defend Our Pensions

For several years now, a climate of uncertainty and insecurity has reigned over the question of pensions at Air Canada. Much ink was spilled about the recent letter from federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty granting Air Canada another extension to its "deadline" for ending the underfunding of the pension plans. However, before we look at this "agreement," we will take a few minutes to look at how the Company has dealt with this matter over the past few years.

Air Canada's proclamations of concern about the sustainability of the pensions and, of course, the well-being of active employees and our retired colleagues don't seem to have been backed up with concrete actions over the past nearly two decades. In fact, one could say the opposite holds true.

According to a 2005 study on "The Impact of Employer Contribution Holidays on the Funding of Defined Benefit Pension Plans," "Between 1994 and 2003 -- even after Air Canada knew of its financial crisis -- the corporation took between one and three contribution holidays for each of its six plans. In the worst case, the company took contribution holidays in 1999, 2000 and 2003 totaling $24.3 million with respect to one plan with a critical funding deficit of 21 per cent.

When Air Canada entered CCAA (Canadian Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act), the blackmail against the workers began. Under the threat of loss of both jobs and pensions, workers at Air Canada were forced to accept upward of a billion dollars in concessions to "save" the Company. The Company was restructured with "the various business segments within the Air Canada group being established as stand-alone entities," several of which were subsequently sold off so that those who seized control of Canada's national airline were able to make a big haul while relieving Air Canada of any responsibility toward its former employees.

The collective agreement that had been forced upon CUPE members at the time included a provision for a "wage re-opener." New Horizons wrote at the time that it didn't necessarily mean we would get a wage increase. Sure enough the "raise" "granted" by the arbitrator was, once again, well below inflation.

While a tiny handful were making big bucks at that time, Air Canada managed to convince the arbitrator that it was suffering a severe disadvantage by having to compete with carriers who did not have pension plans for their employees, and could certainly not be expected to pay its employees wages commensurate with the important safety and service jobs we perform. The Company's argument also indicated to us that it would ultimately like to jettison any responsibility it has toward the retirees and toward the active workers when they leave the work force.

Office of the Superintendent of Finanacial Institutions

The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) regulates federally registered pension plans such as those at Air Canada. In 2004, the OSFI made an arrangement with Air Canada to make annual special payments over a period of 10 years, ie up to December 31, 2013, that would in theory have helped to wipe out the "solvency deficiency." It should be noted that this deficiency is based on a model that assumes Air Canada would cease operations today.

Unfortunately, here we are at the eleventh hour with the "solvency deficiency" not only not having been wiped out but having nearly quadrupled, with figures of upward of $4-billion dollars being thrown around. However, total confusion on the question is maintained through such means as this tidbit from the Air Canada June 10 press release for the "Investor Day Conference" where it expresses its direction for the coming period: "reduce solvency liabilities (estimated at $1.1-billion based on 2012 valuations)."

In 2009, Air Canada won agreement from the government for a moratorium on making any special payments to reduce its pension deficit through 2010, and then a cap on special payments that would rise from $150-million in 2011 to $225-million in 2013. The Financial Post quotes Mr. Rovinescu in his request to federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty for a further 10 year extension of special payments with an annual cap of $150-million as saying that the Company had "worked diligently to address our pension solvency challenges" and that concessions made by the unions "were expected to reduce liabilities by $1.2 billion." "However, despite these significant and hard-fought achievements, the stability and sustainability of our DB (defined-benefit) plans continues to be threatened for reasons completely beyond the company's control," he said.

The problem in eliminating the "deficiency" is blamed on a number of things, particularly on "low interest rates" leading to low earnings on investments and on the anarchy in the "equity markets," where our pension monies were gambled away, losing millions. Of course, the solution offered is not to call on the government to establish higher interest rates or to call for a new direction for the economy with planning that would eliminate the anarchy we experience now. It is no surprise to learn that the "solution" offered is to demand that workers give up a greater part of the added value we produce through the services we provide to the economy.

Jim Flaherty pretends to take a tough line, granting Air Canada only a seven year extension beginning in 2014, with a minimum payment of $150-million a year, or an average of $200-million over the seven years. In what the monopoly press calls "wielding a heavy stick" executive compensation was linked to the special payments with a Globe and Mail article claiming that Mr. Flaherty imposed conditions "limiting increases in executive pay to the rate of inflation, a prohibition on special bonuses and limits on executive incentive plans." We later learned that Mr. Flaherty granted that the executives can receive their full incentive bonuses (cash amounts when the airline meets its financial targets) if the Company makes the full $200-million special payment and lesser amounts if they made more than the minimum payment required. There is no word on what happens to executives' stock options.

One question arises in this. Whatever happened to the OSFI in this story? Has this institution been supplanted by the Finance Minister and executive Order-in-Council? However, more troublesome is the fact that we have been informed that the government is encouraging the Company to seize even more of the added value produced by its employees while the Company executives can continue enriching themselves. The CAW, CUPE, IAMAW Joint Statement on Air Canada Pension Relief Announcement points out that "Unfortunately, Minister Flaherty is also pushing Air Canada to seek, in the next round of negotiations, provisions which would require employees to contribute 50% of pension normal costs." We know from our experience during the 2011 negotiations that the Harper dictatorship is prepared to take any action necessary to support this and other corporations and impose unsustainable wages and working conditions on the workers that will continue the downward pressure on our lifestyle.

No Solution Has Been Provided

One thing that is very clear is that this "relief" provided by the federal government does nothing to solve the problem. Not only has the problem not been solved but the situation has actually deteriorated under these same arrangements that were made in the past. We have absolutely no reason to celebrate.

They are a prolongation of the status quo, which will allow upper management and the handful of wealthy shareholders to continue to reinforce their collaboration with their government to force us to give up even more while they continue to blithely pocket an ever greater share of the added value our work has produced.

It is urgent that we continue organizing to break this sense of impotence in the face of this attempt to steal our pension monies. We must work to ensure that public right trumps monopoly right and to oppose the kind of agreements and arrangements that are made using the blackmail that our very existence depends on the survival of the Company that employs us. It is the survival of the Company that depends on our well-being and on the fulfillment of our common responsibility toward the current and future retirees.

The refusal of the government and the various corporations it serves to take responsibility for the pension crisis shows that they are incapable of directing the economy of this country in the interests of the Canadian people. Their solution to every problem that arises is to attack those who produce the wealth. This cannot continue. This is our economy. The workers at Air Canada provide the services that are required for our national carrier to exist. We are entitled to a retirement with dignity and it is obvious that it is up to us to determine how this can happen. We must fight to defend the pensions we have and fight for pensions for everybody. We have no choice but to strengthen the workers' opposition and establish a new direction for the economy.

* New Horizons is a publication from and for airline workers, particularly In-Flight Service workers. The publication can be reached at newhorizons@videotron.ca.

Second National Day to Uphold Refugees'
Right to Health Care

Doctors prepare for national day of action, Toronto, June 16, 2013.

On June 17, Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care (CDRC) held a second National Day of Action to bring attention to the consequences of the federal government's cuts to refugee health care and called on everyone to join them to "show the Federal Government that Canadians will stand up for the most vulnerable among us." Actions were held in 22 cities across the country including Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Windsor, London, Kitchener, Guelph, Hamilton, Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax and St. John's.

A memo sent out to McGill University medical students advising them of the event explained the background to the day of action: "CDRC was established in the spring of 2012 as an advocacy group singularly focused on persuading the federal government to rescind severe cuts to health care coverage for refugee claimants under the Interim Federal Health program. CDRC is also a co-litigant in a Charter challenge to the cuts. Prior to the cuts which took effect June 30, 2012 and since 1957, IFH provided insurance coverage to refugee claimants for the full breadth of health services and medications and equivalent to that received by people on welfare. CDRC seeks to reverse the cuts or change them so that basic health benefits are restored to refugee claimants." The memo gives a list of some 21 professional associations of those who work in health care that are openly opposed to these cuts.

Calgary, June 15, 2013

Despite stating that the medical school could not take a political position on the cuts, the memo nonetheless pointed out the relevance of students' participation as part of learning to advocate for their patients. A similar memo was sent out at the University of Toronto medical school and both schools made provisions for students to be excused so as to participate in the event.

In the lead up to the day of action, the Facebook page of CDRC was filled with posts from doctors, medical students and health care professionals from across Canada and around the world holding up posters for the June 17 action to show their support and decry the government's cuts to health care.

On June 13, CDRC issued a press release informing that dozens of prominent Canadian writers, actors, filmmakers and musicians had signed a declaration calling on the federal government to reverse its cuts to the Interim Federal Health Program.

"As a physician, and as a Canadian, it is unacceptable to me that refugees in need of health services are being denied care," said award winning author Dr. Vincent Lam. "I stand proudly with my colleagues in the medical and arts communities in calling on the federal government to reverse these harmful cuts."

Fort Erie, June 11, 2013

Among other signatories to the declaration are authors Margaret Atwood, Yann Martel and Rohinton Mistry, actors Shirley Douglas and Kiefer Sutherland, musician Jian Ghomeshi, and former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and her husband, writer John Ralston Saul.

The declaration states in part: "Refugees arriving in Canada -- many of whom are fleeing war, violence, or famine -- often come with little more than the clothes they are wearing. Access to basic health services is guaranteed to them under the Charter; care has been provided because it is the right thing to do.

"Now, due to these cuts, many refugees -- future citizens of this country -- are being denied services, including children and pregnant women. [...] The federal cuts have also sown confusion within our health system, further restricting access to care for refugees and resulting in unnecessary costs being borne by provincial governments.

"This is not the Canadian way.

"We call on the federal government to reverse these health cuts and restore our country's humanitarian tradition of providing care to refugees."

(Photos: CDRC)

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