Published By AMERICAN INCOME LIFE & NATIONAL INCOME LIFE LETTER canada LABOUR ADVISORY BOARD DECEMBER 2013 Vol. 14 No. 7 NEWS FROM THE unveiled the changes in a sweeping 321- CLC, FEDERATIONS page fall budget implementation bill. The & NATIONAL proposal will redefine what is considered “danger” in federally regulated workplac- UNIONS es and change the “refusal to work pro- cess,” according to the budget document. The Conservative govern- The changes would apply to approximate- ment’s fall budget bill includes changes ly 10 per cent of the Canadian workforce, to safety and health requirements that between 1.5 and 2 million Canadian will create unsafe conditions for work- workers who fall under federal jurisdic- ers, opposition parties and labour groups tion, according to the Canadian Labour charged. “It really is an affront to the pro- Congress. Affected sectors include tele- tection of workers from harm and danger communications, rail, transport, airlines, in the workplace,” said Hassan Yussuff, the federal public service and others, with Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian La- the remaining workers covered by provin- bour Congress. The Harper government cial labour codes. Too many Canadian workers are stuck in part time jobs and others have given up looking for work altogether, de- clared Ken Georgetti, head of the Cana- dian Labour Congress. He commented on the Statistics Canada Labour Force Sur- vey for October 2013 which showed that the overall unemployment rate remained at 6.9 per cent. But among young people 15- to 27 years old, joblessness rose to 13.4 per cent. “I get letters almost every month from people who have been looking for full-time work and can’t find it,” Georget- ti said. “I get other letters from parents whose kids have graduated from college and university with student debt and can’t Hassan Yussuff, Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Labour Congress. Flickr.com photo used find work. Often those young people are under Creative Commons from Confederación Sindical de las Américas. forced to live in their parents’ basements. JAMES WILLIAMS, General President Emeritus - International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, Chairman - AIL Labour Advisory Board VICTOR KAMBER, Vice President - American Income Life Insurance Company, Executive Director - AIL Labour Advisory Board ROGER SMITH, Chief Executive Officer - American Income Life Insurance Company, President - AIL Labour Advisory Board DENISE BOWYER, Vice President - American Income Life Insurance Company, Secretary - AIL Labour Advisory Board DAVE BARRETT, Former Premier of Province of British Columbia, Honorary Member - AIL Labour Advisory Board DEBBIE ENSTEDT, Vice President of International Public Relations - American Income Life Insurance Company Pg 2 LABOUR LETTER It’s heart-breaking.” He said the nation INTERNATIONAL union IndustriALL. He also serves as has a problem with persistent and high president of the Indonesian Trade Union unemployment but “the Finance Minis- LABOUR NEWS Confederation (KSPI). The Governor ter insists that we have to pursue austerity and employer’s association agreed upon and cutbacks.” More than 1.5 million workers a nine per cent minimum wage increase waged a two-day national strike in In- for Jakarta after the two-day strike. Ac- Alberta Federation of Labour donesia, October 31-November 1, to cording to the trade unions, however, (AFL) urged Premier Alison Redford to demand an increase in the minimum the new minimum wage is still too low; refuse the Canada Jobs Grant because wage, among other issues. Violent clash- arguing that the hike is lower than the the province’s existing skills training pro- es marred the protests as 17 protestors inflation. IndustriALL Global Union grams would lose $33 million. “There’s no were injured with one still in critical General Secretary Jyrki Raina declared, guarantee that these grants won’t just be condition. “We wanted safe demonstra- “We support our members in Indonesia used for existing training that successful tions, but paramilitary forces attacked and their struggle. They have our relent- employers are already doing. And to pay workers with beams and knifes. They less support in continuing to build unity for it, they want to scrap programs that were allegedly paid by the government among trade unions and stopping the are helping disadvantaged people partici- and employers,” said Said Iqbal, presi- government and employers from using pate in the labour force,” Alberta Federa- dent of FSPMI, an affiliate of the global this division against workers.” tion of Labour president Gil McGowan said. He warned that the Canada Jobs Grant is essentially “a wholesale privati- zation” of the federal government’s role in skills training. McGowan said the total budget impact would be $66 million in lost training dollars. New Zealand union leaders continued to press for stronger safety and health protections, particularly in the forestry industry where eight deaths have already been recorded. The unions’ campaign was a major focus of the speech by Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly November 2 to the Labour conference in Christchurch. She dis- cussed CTU’s forestry industry safety and health campaign by noting the latest death of forestry worker Charles Finlay. She said that he regularly worked be- tween 55 and 60 hours in a 5-day week and up to 64 hours when he worked a Saturday, driving more than an hour each way. She said the 300 contractors in the industry were being squeezed by the nine big forest owners by being allocated work too late to make a safety plan and they faced increasing pressures over pro- ductivity requirements. “Charles and his family are the victims of a deregulated labour market. Charles’ employment was insecure — he was not paid in bad weath- er, he was employed in an insecure supply chain arrangement,” she said. Kelly also highlighted the CTU’s living wage cam- paign, fairness-at-work campaign and the campaign on insecure work. Striking workers in Indonesia. Flickr.com photo used under Creative Commons from iambents. LABOUR LETTER Pg 3 in June 2013, up from 21 in 2005 and four in 1995. “The increasing number of trade agreements that include provisions with re- spect to labour standards is a reflection of the growing awareness that trade liberalisation should go hand-in-hand with progress on the employment and social front,” said Ray- mond Torres, director of the ILO Research Department. The report is significant at a time when New Zealand is negotiating sev- eral FTAs, such as with the Customs Union, where talks are now taking place in Moscow. The study defined labour provisions as those that establish minimum working conditions, terms of employment or worker rights, any norm on the protection provided to workers under national labour law and its enforce- ment, as well as any framework for coopera- tion or monitoring these issues. NATIONAL & POLITICAL EVENTS Delegates to the recent federal Tory party three-day convention in Calgary passed a series of resolutions aimed at cur- AFGE President David Cox addresses members of the press Nov. 1 after learning of the shooting at tailing the role of unions in Canadian life. Los Angeles International Airport. Flickr.com photo used under Creative Commons from AFGE. The resolutions put the party on record in support of so-called “right-to-work” laws U.S. Transportation Security A new International Labour Or- while another said mandatory union mem- Administration workers, represented by ganisation report found a marked rise in in- bership limits “the economic freedom of the American Federation of Government clusion of labour provisions in bilateral and Canadians” and stifles economic growth. Employees, mourned the death of the first related free trade agreements (FTAs). The A measure calling for greater transparency worker in the line of duty since the agency report, ‘Social Dimensions of Free Trade on political activities by federal public sec- was created in the aftermath of the Sep- Agreement,’ also noted that FTAs now gov- tor unions was also approved. None of the tember 11 attacks. TSA behaviour-detec- ern 5.5 per cent of global trade compared resolutions require action by the Harper tion officer, Gerardo Hernandez, 39, was with 0.6 per cent in 1995. It found that 58 government. Gil McGowan, president of shot to death at Los Angeles International trade agreements included labour provisions the Alberta Federation of Labour, said Airport by a gunman authorities identi- fied as Paul Ciancia, 23. Ciancia was later shot and is being held in custody. “We are sickened by reports of [the] shooting,” said AFGE President David Cox. “Our sincer- est thoughts and prayers go out to the pas- sengers and Transportation Security Of- ficers killed or injured in this heinous act. Thank you to all of our brave TSOs who put their lives on the line every day to keep the flying public safe.” He said federal bud- get cutting has restricted TSA hiring and declared airports would be safer if security were fully staffed. “All government agencies are seeing constant cutbacks,” Cox said. “Austerity is killing us.” Protesting the Harper government. Flickr.com photo used under Creative Commons from ItzaFineDay. Pg 4 LABOUR LETTER Conservative party delegates were in the ‘occasional’ or ‘frequent’ categories,” said neither did the workers,” said USW Or- process of “declaring war” on the Ca- Marie-Helene Arruda from the Que- ganizer Pablo Guerra. In unrelated news, nadian labour movement. “It’s going to bec Coalition Against the EI Changes. Canadian National Director Ken Neu- have profound negative impacts on all Workers in part time, casual and tempo- mann announced the union’s Humanity working Canadians because once you rary jobs with erratic schedules and edu- Fund contributed $135,000 to 65 food weaken labour, the result will be down- cational support workers, hotel workers, banks in Canadian communities where ward pressure on wages and conditions factory workers and others who are laid USW members live and work.