Electro-Motive plans to close its London plant
So a handsomely profitable corporation buys a London Ontario locomotive factory in June 2010 and promptly tells the 465 or so members of the CAW local there that they’ll have to cut their wages in half and give up their pension plan to keep their jobs. Things lead to things and on New Year’s Day the company locked out the workers.
They’ve got their own government, their own TV network
Naturally they’ll be feeling a bit cocky. So cocky that they figure they can fake the oath. That would be the citizenship oath. A fake oath with fake citizens on TV show about fake issues.
C’mon people now, smile on your brother everybody get together try to love one another right now
A line from a cheesey hippie song from the sixties. À propos of nothing, really, except this. No, I’m not expecting Stephen Harper will start getting together and trying to love all the low-income seniors he’d screw out of two years of OAS even as the F-35s scream overhead.
And while I’m ranting
Do you ever notice how the people who will complain about unionized workers making a little (or a lot it doesn’t seem to matter) more than non-unionized workers always argue that the solution is for unionized workers to earn less?
Fewer good jobs around so let’s eliminate more of them
That’ll make everyone feel better. A CIBC report covered today says there are fewer good jobs in Canada these days. The bank’s job quality index dropped by a per cent over the last year. Wow they have a job quality index. It’s almost like they care.
And now we fire the people who encourage us to make homes energy efficient
Natural Resources Canada is eliminating 100 jobs, Postmedia’s Kathryn May reports. Ministry spokespeople say the positions being cut were those managing “sunsetting” programs and that there are no new decreases to service cuts.
Wolf Lake Wednesday
It’s late but here’s my week’s contribution to Wolf Lake Wednesday. Friends of Temagami, Earthroots and no doubt a bunch of other organizations and individuals are trying to pressure the Ontario government to take Wolf Lake in the Chiniguchi waterway off the table for mining and logging.
Language instructors and scientists. That’s who they’re firing this week
From Environment Canada, no less. And from the training institute that, among other things, is supposed to help improve the level of bilingualism in the civil service.
Gerry Nicholls has my blood boiling
This Postmedia item has had me in a lather all day. It’s not just that they’re whipping up the faithful against the people I work for. That always bothers me but it’s ah… not new to me.
Flaherty tells the provinces ‘take it or leave it’ on health care funding
Well I feel better now, knowing that provincial governments have now joined the ranks of the scorned and disenfranchised. Unions now have some company. That whole no negotiation this is what you’re getting thing has been the hallmark of Tory policy dealing with those-who-are-not-us since the beginning.
CAW and CEP talking merger? Wow
So this is me talking from a great distance, I hedge. I remember when CEP was formed in 1992. It was, itself the product of a merger of three unions: Canadian Paperworkers Union, the Communications and Electrical Workers of Canada and the Energy and Chemical Workers.
This time the giant squirrel goes to the supermarket
The video is about cuts to federal food inspection programs which were found wanting by an inquest into the 2008 deaths of 22 people from eating contaminated meat. Watch til the end. Really.
Well it was redneck hot button day today, wasn’t it
First there was this. Combining flag waving patriotism with Islamophobia and use it to take a stab at “the other”. The Globe item has 1779 comments on it. I’m going to guess that a new dawn of cross cultural understanding is not rising there.
And on December 6th
The Tories take the dismantling of the long gun registry one step closer to reality. One MP with a stunningly insensitive display of glee.
Giant squirrel ravages government office
So here it is. I’ve seen it more than a few times and it still makes me chuckle. I also like it because it’s not your typical union campaign video. We’ll see how it fares and if it gets a life of its own. Please share it with friends and squirrel lovers.
