CAW kills the idea of a strike over Oshawa plant closure. Damn
Huh? This was just starting to get interesting.
It even had Ken Georgetti making noise. Finally, I thought, a union — and the post Framework of Fairness CAW no less — getting all uppity about plant closures. Great stuff.
And now Buzz Hargrove is saying they’re going to take it to arbitration? Or appeal to Stephen Harper to reinstate the Auto Pact? Might as well email the Easter Bunny.
Aribtrators won’t keep a plant open.
They begin with the whole premise that the people who have the keys and sign the cheques do whatever they want and then just pay out bigger packages later if they determine that some rules got broken in the process.
Stephen Harper – who’s just got himself free trade with Colombia and is working on the Security and Prosperity Partnership – is not going to legislate performance requirements on anything except his own caucus.
Now I wish my union comrades in Oshawa were making hybrids, or fuel cell cars or even sub compacts, rather than the guzzlers they’re making. But even so, ask Ken Georgetti says, “It’s time for some raw shows of force.”
And they had it right.
I salute the determination of the workers who took it this far. Will we ever have the courage to take it as far as it needs to go to make a real change?
