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March 1, 2010 - No. 44
Windsor, Ontario
Workers Oppose Wrecking of
Auto Sector and Public Services
- Pierre Chénier -
• Workers
Oppose Wrecking of Auto Sector and Public Services - Pierre Chénier
• "We Have to Keep Fighting -- Fighting Back
Makes a Difference" - Interview, Gerry Farnham, President,
CAW Local 195
• "Times Are Tough But There Is an Alternative"
- Interview, Dave Crosswell,
Financial Secretary, CAW Local 200
• "Our Strike Was Aimed at Protecting the
Public Services" - Interview, Pat Strople, Steward, CUPE Local
543 (City of Windsor Inside Workers)
• "We Are Glad We Took on the Fight"
- Interview, Taxi Drivers from Veteran Cab Unit, CAW
Local 195
Windsor, Ontario
Workers Oppose Wrecking of
Auto Sector and Public Services
- Pierre Chénier -
For the people of Windsor where one in eight jobs is in
the auto sector, the devastation of that sector is very real. Nine
thousand jobs have been lost in auto since 2003. Windsor has an
unemployment rate of 12.7 percent as of January 2010, one of the
highest in the
country, largely due to the loss
of direct and indirect jobs in auto. The crisis of the auto sector and
the anti-labour restructuring has produced a
drastic deterioration of living standards, which can
turn an industrial worker into a homeless person in
no time, the workers say.
The monopolies, with the assistance of the media and
governments in their service, are using the crisis and the
deterioration of working conditions in the auto sector to declare that
a Canadian standard of living is a thing of the past for
all workers. "If auto goes
down, everybody should go down!" is the new motto to justify the
most irrational abdication of social responsibility. This pressure is
being brought to bear directly on the public sector. Anything that
provides a minimum of protection for the workers, whether active or
retired, and thus favours society's well-being by ensuring the proper
delivery of public services, is
considered a cost that must be cut.
In the summer of 2009, the
courageous strike of the city workers was precisely opposed to this
inhuman outlook. The workers' struggle embodied their broad outlook
based on the social responsibility that everyone in society must have a
dignified life. This meant fighting forthe proper working
conditions so that the workers can provide the services to ensure
society's members are looked after. They rejected the pressure
to be aloof to the situation facing retirees or to make concessions
at the expense of future
generations yet to enter the workforce. Despite the strike being over,
irresponsible
politicians and the monopoly media continue their attempts to blame
economic problems and difficulties in
the delivery of public services on the workers and their steadfast
struggle this past summer to defend the public good. The workers and
people are rejecting these attempts as self-serving propaganda and
further pretexts to destroy and privatize public services.
The workers, who create the social wealth and have
built
the nation, do not accept nation-wrecking as a solution to any
problem.
As the lifeblood of Windsor, the workers are striving to marshall the
strength of their numbers by mobilizing everyone to stop this wrecking.
Windsor, June 12,
2009:
Mass demonstration of
city workers and their supporters. 
"We Have to Keep Fighting --
Fighting Back Makes a Difference"
- Interview, Gerry Farnham, President,
CAW Local 195 -
Windsor,
March 18, 2009: Rally
in support
of
laid-off
Aradco/Aramco
workers.
The
workers
blockaded
their
plants
for a week to demand payment of back wages and severance from their employer.
TML: Can you give us an
overview of the crisis in the auto parts sector in Windsor?
Gerry Farnham: In 2006 -2007 we had 65
plants in the local union that we represented and approximately 7,000
members and today in 2010 we have 52 facilities which we are still
representing and 4,000 members. This is quite a significant blow to the
union. Some of the workplaces
remain open, but their workforces have dropped significantly with
layoffs. For example, at the workplace I came from, Fabco, when I left
in 2002 there were 566 workers on the seniority list. Today there are
about 120. Some have taken buyouts, others have retired and a lot have
lost their seniority and recall
rights. That is happening in quite a few of our facilities. We have
seen that the plants have downsized quite significantly. A lot of that
has to do with new technology that has made workers redundant but not
only that, the main problem is the crisis of the auto industry as a
whole.
With these plant closures the workers are left high and
dry because we are at the very bottom of the secure creditors list. We
see plants going into bankruptcy or that close, and some people are
receiving their severance and termination pay and in some cases we have
been successful at negotiating
enhanced severance. For example, right now the law requires one week
pay per year of service under severance legislation and we have been
successful in some cases to get that enhanced to two weeks and extend
their benefits a bit but in most cases the employer just ups and runs
away.
 TML: Your
local
has
been
involved
in
a
bitter
battle
against
the
theft
of
monies
that belong to the Aradco and Aramco workers in the auto parts sector.
What were the main moments of this struggle?
GF: Aradco and
Aramco were two plants owned by the U.S. owner Catalina which supplied
parts to Chrysler. In the case of Aradco, on March 9, 2009, the workers
received a call that night that they were not to report to work the
following day because Chrysler was exiting their work. As
far as I know, Aradco made high quality products, won awards for high
quality and production performances; they were doing very well as
supplier for Chrysler. So we found it very weird that they just exited
the work. At the same time Catalina was saying "Chrysler you can't exit
our work, we have a five-year
contract, you are only in year two and you can't just pull out."
We decided to blockade both facilities and not allow
any trucks in or out. The trucks were coming, the police were coming.
In the meantime in the courts in Toronto, they were trying to put
injunctions in place. We replied by beefing things up. There was police
presence. On a particular day a paddy
wagon started showing up. We decided to block and occupy one of the
facilities, which was Aradco, knowing that that was the hot plant for
the tooling [machinery to be removed].
We ended up at that time with a payment of $400,000
from a third party, which was Chrysler. Our President Ken Lewenza and
Jerry Diaz, his assistant, negotiated this thing with Chrysler. We
never heard anything from the employer, Catalina. We did file a
grievance against Catalina asking for all
wages, benefits, vacation pay, and severance which amounted to $2.4
million.
Mid-November one of our national reps noticed activity
and a for sale sign at the Aradco plant. I immediately went over to
Aradco and was shocked to see as I walked into the plant that all the
lights were out and there was an auditor there and others and they said
they were getting set up for an auction
of the equipment. On November 16 we created a human blockade of both
plants. The auction was going to be on the internet and at the Radisson
Hotel. We put together a flying squad. The police had the hotel
surrounded and had a paddy wagon. We had a couple hundred people which
made it a lot easier. You
cannot do it as one person. So by being able to collectively come
together with all the different local unions in the community and our
affiliates, we were able to get inside the lobby, up the stairwell to
the auction, passed the police and we took over the auction.
We took our fight to the U.S. and on November 24 we
held a peaceful demonstration in Detroit in front of the office of
Comerica Bank, one of the largest creditors of Catalina. We walked
alongside the United Auto Workers, the American Teacher's Federation,
other unions came and showed their
solidarity. It was kind of neat to watch it come together
internationally. We told the bank representatives that it was
inappropriate for the bank to demand money from the closure while
workers had not been paid and to sell the assets of the two companies.
We said that in our view, Comerica should not get its hands
on any funds until payments have been made to employees of these two
companies. Besides this is the same bank that received more than $2
billion in bailout funds from the U.S. government.
The following day I met with [Ontario Labour Minister
Peter] Fonseca's two senior advisors. We told them we have a law in
place, and asked how come the government is not implementing it? The
problem
is they are not enforcing the laws. We wanted to send that clear
message to him. Not only for us, but
for all the workers. There were salaried people calling me
and thanking me for taking on the fight. They were salaried people --
management -- and were not going to receive a penny. So we started to
speak up on behalf of them as well even though I cannot legally
represent them or act as an agent for them.
I started to reach out to the Windsor Action Centre, and ran into other
people that were not from union plants that closed and ended up
receiving nothing. This became so big and not just for union shops but
for non-union shops as well and for those who are not organized.
Salaried staff did not have any voice
whatsoever.
The minister's advisors kept putting it onto the
federal government. I said it was not a federal issue, that is an
Ontario law. I also understand, when you buy a corporation, when
Catalina bought this company, there was $2.4 million
in severance. If the company was worth $10
million, they got it for $8 million. You don't just buy
the assets you also buy any of the liabilities when you purchase. These
monies should be held in trust until payments to workers are completed.
These companies need to be held accountable. Fonseca's senior advisors
said: "We can't just chase every
international employer." But that is exactly what we did. It is money
that is owed to us. It is a law. As a result of the action against the
auction, we were able to get another $225,000 as an agreement between
CAW Local 195, the company owners of Catalina Inc., and Comerica Bank.
Catalina has a court case against
Chrysler for breach of contract, and in the event that it wins, the
bank is actually putting us first to be paid from the proceeds. I don't
know if that has ever happened. I think it is a clear example that
fighting back matters.
We want the law to be enforced and we also demand
changes in the legislation. We want that in case of bankruptcies or
plant closures, the workers are first creditors and paid first all the
amounts that are due to them.
Another demand that we have is against the Employment
Insurance claw back. At the moment, if you receive $20,000 dollars as
severance, or $1000 a week, you cannot collect EI for 20 weeks. That is
absolutely absurd. A worker has worked in a factory, he is 55 years
old now, his plant has closed,
he receives $20,000 and he cannot use it as he sees fit. This is a ball
and chain. He should be able to use that severance however he
wishes, maybe on his mortgage. The taxpayer will end up paying for
this if the worker ends up on social services.
We are facing these difficult situations every day.
Workers coming to the office telling us they can't afford to register
their kids in hockey any more, or marriages are being destroyed, or
workers and their families are eating cheese sandwiches because that is
all they can afford or even suicides. It is
sickening that we have to go through this in this day and age.
We have to keep fighting. Fighting back makes a
difference.
"Times Are Tough But There Is an Alternative"
- Interview, Dave Crosswell, Financial
Secretary, CAW Local 200 -
 TML: In the context of the crisis of
the auto industry, can you give us an overview of what is happening at
Ford in Windsor under the hoax of restructuring?
Dave Crosswell: I would tend to use
the
word genocide rather than restructuring. Back in 1978, there were three
Ford plants in Windsor, and they were all three shifts and there were
about 5,200 Ford workers in Windsor.
In December of 1978 the bottom fell out. Among other
problems, the interest rates in the country went higher than 20 percent
and
in
just a few years the union membership went from 5,200 to 1,200.
In the early '80s things started picking up. Membership
rose to about 4,200. During that period leading to the mid-'90s we got
a new plant, the Windsor engine plant. We got a new Essex aluminum
plant, a Windsor aluminum plant, which was not just doing production
but they also had a research
and development department as well. Our membership in the mid
'90s went up to about 6,400. Today we are at 1,600. We have lost almost
5,000
jobs since the mid '90s. Just to list a few losses not in any
particular order; we lost the Essex engine plant, our casting plant
that had been around since 1936; we had
job losses at the Windsor engine plant which was a three-shift engine
operation and went down to two shifts; and the Annex that is located in
the building that is just beside the engine plant stopped production on
an engine line.
So today we are about 1,600 Ford workers still at work
in Windsor. We have the Windsor engine plant which works on two shifts
with about 900 workers. There are a couple hundred people working at
the Annex who make things like connecting rods and crankshafts. Then we
have a small transportation
department with about 30 truck drivers, and the Windsor aluminum plant
that was a joint venture of Ford and Nemak, now owned by Nemak but
still under our collective agreement, that employs about 220 workers.
And then we have the Essex engine plant that is coming with a new
product to be launched in March.
The expectation is that it will have two or three shifts but even with
three
shifts, with the outsourcing of a lot of the equipment and a lot of the
components, we expect a total of about 750 workers versus the
traditional 1,200-1,500. As that new engine is launched, it will be in
direct competition with what we are producing
at the Windsor engine plant which will then lose a shift. So there are
also going to be job losses but without this new engine we were sunk,
because Ford had a very clear exit plan from Windsor.
TML: How is your local
coping with this situation?
DC: As I said, we
were facing a company which had a very clear exit plan from Windsor.
That is why we fought very hard to get a new product because at some
point if you keep losing production, there is no incentive for a
corporation to remain in the city. We saw this move to get the Essex
engine as something that we can build upon in the future, as putting a
foot in the door to make sure that we are not shut out in Windsor.
Part of our activities that we are extremely proud of
is the work that we did to build the adjustment centre for the laid off
workers. We forced the employer to have eight-hour information sessions
on
what was out there for you if you were laid off, what benefits were
there for you and what you need
to look out for, from issues like benefits to mental health. We pushed
the province and Ford to fund an adjustment centre for our laid off
workers which does tremendous work in helping people. It saved lives,
there is no question about it, and we did have some suicides. So it
makes me so angry to hear sometimes
about those "rich" auto workers, who cannot handle these problems like
anybody else. The reality is that they are workers and they have always
been workers and they are being challenged.
We are there to assist all the unions that are fighting
whether the CUPE city workers or the OPSEU correctional officers or at
the moment the workers of the municipal child care centres.
Besides, the Ford workers are amongst the most generous
in charities, towards the United Way for example and in spite of our
decreasing numbers we have made significant contributions to help the
victims of the tsunami in 2005 and just recently the victims of the
earthquake in Haiti.
TML: How do you see the
prospects for the future of Windsor and of labour?
DC: One big issue for us is to make
sure that there is no loss of hope amongst workers about manufacturing
and the future of the labour movement. We must make sure that there is
no feeling created out there that neoliberal globalization is
the only way to run an economy
and an industry, that it is like the four seasons of the earth,
something inevitable. Otherwise, the perspective is very bleak and it
is very easy to become fearful. Just look at what happened at Canada's
"shining star," Nortel, and at the crisis at GM and Chrysler. We have
to keep fighting back in order to make a difference
and show that there is an alternative.
The big corporations are pushing very hard, including
in our ranks, that mindset that the more productivity for the
corporations, the more benefits for the workers. This is not my mind
set though and many workers are also opposing that.
The history of Ford in Windsor goes back to 1941. We
had the grand strike in 1945 that gave workers the Rand Formula among
other things and then strikes including wildcat strikes almost every
year after that. In 1954, the membership went on strike for 112 days
and we were the first to get company
paid health care at Ford Canada. We have got two, three, four
generations of
families who worked at Ford and we now have about 1,000 workers on
layoffs at the moment and over 2,000 people who retired in the last six
years. There is a big question before us: is our hope that we are going
to bounce back once again going
to materialize, on behalf of these generations of workers? We have
always come back and people like me agreed to the concessions that we
made in the latest rounds of negotiations with Ford to stay in the game
and be able to come back. We have always maintained our presence but
today we are facing globalization
and the lack of emphasis of any government intervention policy to
defend manufacturing.
There is a big labour community in Windsor. It was
quite an accomplishment for example when the city workers for over 100
days stuck together during the summer and fought on issues that did not
even affect them directly but affected the future retirees. They won a
significant wage increase in an
environment of wage cuts and no wage increases. We have given all the
support that we could and we do the same to the unions that are
fighting. We need more actions in which the rank and file members
participate and involve the leadership at the local level such as the
Labour Councils and contribute to bring
the leadership at the higher level together. We had the Days of Action
under Mike Harris which was not a hundred years ago. We need more
actions like that.
We are fighting a right-wing neoliberal agenda.
Unorganized workers need unions. There is a huge force out there that
needs to get organized so that we can improve the working conditions of
all. And it is not an issue of CAW or any other union growing its
members but it is an issue of the workers
gaining confidence in themselves and the labour movement.
Manufacturing and industry are so important for the
future but today we see these huge corporations just coming here to
take our natural resources whatever the cost for our communities. They
need a certain amount of people who do research and development for
them and are highly educated and
for everybody else the prospect is minimum wage.
One challenge we are facing is the big media. Here, the
Windsor
Star is totally corporate-fed even if Windsor has such a labour
history. They openly write against labour and in favour of the
privatization of social programs and public education, of the LCBO,
everything. Often
their tactics are to publish very provocative right-wing letters and
then in their editorials they are writing basically the same message
but with a language that does not look so extremist. The labour
movement has to build a counterbalance to this. We were more aggressive
at the time of the Days of Action to get
our message across.
Times are tough but I am not of a mind to see
just the hardships. We are sticking together. For example we see
workers volunteering their time to assist others at the adjustment
centre. We have issues in the workplaces and we are dealing with them.
People in the community are facing crises too
and we are working together with them.
"Our Strike Was Aimed at Protecting
the Public Services"
- Interview, Pat Strople, Steward, CUPE
Local 543
(City of Windsor Inside Workers) -
TML: On February 1, the
Windsor City Council decided to close seven city-operated child care
centres and the two satellites. How was the decision taken?
Pat Strople: The Child Care, Social
Services Administration made a recommendation to council to close all
seven directly operated municipal child care centers and two
satellites. The two satellites are two small after school programs at
the child care centres.
The administration wrote a
report and put it to
council. On February 1, the council accepted the recommendation without
any consultation with the workers affected and the community. We were
there at the council meeting and there were so many people that the
council chambers were overflowing,
the hallway outside the council chambers was packed and so was the
downstairs lobby. People couldn't even get upstairs. Normally we don't
have that kind of turnout at city council meetings in Windsor. People
were
there because they support the public operation of child care.
 Two of the day care centres
are in the more working class area in the west end of the city. The
people there do not have transportation to easily get to other centres.
In spite of this, the two city councillors for that ward excused
themselves from the vote. So for two of the seven day cares in the ward
there
was no voice on council. So the rest of the council thought that they
had a right to close this down, ignoring the fact that all these people
who were there were asking them at least to look at the question, to
consult with the community for direction about what do about this
decision. The council acted as if it was in a mad
rush.
TML: The city council and the
Windsor Star are using the issue of a lack of
enrollment in these centres to justify the closures. What is your
opinion about that?
PS: In Windsor, because we have so
many shift workers, in some areas the centres have been running full
evening care programs until 1:00 in the morning. There are still shift
workers that need that. That's where there is 100 percent enrollment
and yet the child care centres are still being closed.
The argument about the lack of enrollment does not take
into account the fact that the city has one of the highest official
unemployment rates in Canada. Less people are at work and there are not
a lot of retraining or job opportunities for parents and that has to be
one of the factors as to why there is less
need for child care for the parents. Right now there is not the same
need but that's a temporary situation and hopefully that will change.
Even people who aren't at work need to be out looking for work
or for schooling. If they can't find child care or can't afford it they
can't get reintegrated.
The administration is using the lack of enrollment as
one of the reasons for this closure, but the reason behind the closure
is actually to stop providing a service publicly and to privatize it.
In child care, there are private operations, non-profit
operations and public operations. These are three different facets of
it. In a private operation, someone actually owns it and if they can
pay
workers as little as possible, they can pocket money, it is a
for-profit
business.
There are non-profits that can be operated
cooperatively, which does not happen very often. Across the province,
these are normally run by a board made up mostly of parents and
community people. They have an executive director who works there and a
supervisor in the centre who manages the
child care. They put their proceeds back into the child care centre and
unfortunately most of them pay very poorly. Some of them have an
equitable system. The supervisor and administrator make about the same
as the workers. It is not bad though because they are all making bad
money so then that seems to me
fairer. Unfortunately you can also run that kind of operation where the
operators are not working in the best interest of the families and the
children, where they are paying themselves well and still paying the
workers very little, close to minimum wage.
Then there are the public
services, which are the
municipal ones that are now being closed in Windsor. In these centres,
pay equity and job evaluations have given fair remunerations to the
workers as the service is measured against other people doing different
jobs. The working conditions are much
better than in the other types of child care centres and that is the
excuse they are using for trying to close them down. Once the
comparative group (the public workers) who provide a sign that "Yes
You Can Do This Better" is gone, then the private operators will not
need to increase their wages at all and they will
be able to increase the prices because there will be no municipal
standard. Workers in the municipal centres are all trained,
which does add to the cost but it also lets parents that come to the
service know that when they leave their children they have qualified
workers with them. If the city proceeds with
the closures, there is going to be less flexibility for people in this
big city, there will be no extended-hours care available.
We will have to fight for pay equity because in our
laws in this province, if a business started up after
1985, those private operators are required to start their business with
comparative wages, which, in this case, is with the wages of municipal
workers in Windsor. There are 34 centres
in the report that our commissioner spoke about. Starting in the last
two years, none of them pay equal to the rate that we get.
Because we are connected to social services we can
provide programs that would not be provided by private businesses. One
that has been running for 15 years is the Work and Learn Program where
the young mothers who are on social assistance and not going to school
or working spend two weeks learning job retraining ideas, and they have
a three
month placement in the child care centres where their children can go.
The young women work with the cook and go to life skills classes,
they write resumes and the success rate is 90 percent. Six months after
they finish this program they
are out working or in school. No programs run a 90 percent success
rate. It is a wonderful program and the young women learn some good
parenting and child care skills. This will be such a huge loss because
it will not be replicated anywhere. The businesses that will be coming
in to do the child care will not have
such programs.
For us city workers who were on strike last summer
against the concessions that the city council was demanding, it is
clear that there is an element of retaliation against us from the
council for the strike. Our strike which was aimed at protecting the
public services is being blamed for the lack of enrollment
in the municipal child care centres. We were on strike and we are now
paying the price. The 13 provincial offences officers and the garbage
collection are already facing privatization and we have not seen the
end of it.
TML: What
have been the actions of the people so far?
PS: At the February
1 council meeting there was the mass action I spoke about earlier and
the week before that, once we had seen the report and what they were
proposing, there was a public meeting that was very well attended;
there were families and other concerned people at that meeting
and we all went to council prepared to give good reasons why this
should not happen immediately. But it did. We are in the process of
considering other actions to force the city to withdraw its decision to
close these centres. People are still in shock at the moment.
 In conclusion, I want to
say that this is not what we
have built up in this city and have expected from our city. Windsor has
been a progressive city; Windsor has been forward thinking. It has been
a leading city for caring for people, for caring for workers and caring
for their families. This is so contrary
to what we are about here.
More generally, we are facing a slow erosion of our
rights. It has been going on for the last 30 years and I have been just
watching it more and more going against caring for people and caring
for the community and the workers, the working class and it's harder
and harder to take. When you hear
them speak in those terms, the "child care business," this is horrible.
This is just like the Aramco workers where the laws are
not being followed. There is no pressure being put on the owners to
follow the laws that are on the books.
"We Are Glad We Took on the Fight"
- Interview, Taxi Drivers from Veteran
Cab
Unit, CAW Local 195 -
TML: What was the result of
your strike of more than three months from April to July 2009?
Taxi Drivers: We got more than 90
percent
of what we demanded. Our main demand was for the reduction of the lease
rates of the cars at Veteran Cab. We got the reduction from $452 to
$404 a week and we got a summer rate in the contract, which means that
during the summer
we pay $350 a week instead of $404. The company would never put a
summer rate in the contract and this time we forced them to include it.
Plus we had big issues like security cameras and we got the cameras for
the drivers. We got an extra holiday and we improved the language, etc.
We got them to recognize
that we do get sick. We got a few fee-free sick days planned. We won
fixed holidays.
It was a long strike but the reality of it is, we are
glad we took on the fight. It was a decent contract given the times.
The ridership was down 25-30 percent. With so many layoffs in the
community and in the city of Windsor and with plants being shut down,
people can't afford to have their
kids sent to school by cab, or people are deciding they are not going
out on the weekend to a movie or a hotel, or for dinner or a couple of
drinks. They just aren't doing that anymore. And the strike took place
at the slowest time of the year, in the summer when people walk or ride
bikes. So getting summer rates
put in the contract was a big success. It is the first time in the
history of the industry.
The free sick or robbery days are important too. We
asked for five but we ended up with three days a year. It is actually
quite shocking when you think of this. The employer says that we lease
the car for seven days. They try to compare it to a hotel room for
seven
days. You are paying for it for seven
days whether you use it or not. We had one of our guys who was stabbed
in the leg and his employer said, "That isn't my problem" and charged
him the whole seven days. The membership clearly indicated that
security cameras are also important for them. So we got security
cameras in their vehicles for their safety
as well as for the safety of the public.
The workers were looked down upon, because of the
different cultures. Management was selling them a licence plate for
$20,000,
and when you looked at the paperwork it was down as $10,000 so he was
pocketing the money. We always mentioned this but nobody would believe
us.
Now with the Harmonized Sales Tax the situation is
going to become even more difficult for the cab drivers and the public.
The meter is going to go up which will decrease the number of
people using cabs even more and the price of gas and of repairs on the
cars is also going to go up. All
this in a situation where the ridership is already going down.
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