Gaining Ground Fall 2014

A few scenes
from our GMM
Hundreds of IUOE members attended the
September General Membership Meeting
which featured the union’s General President,
James T. Callahan and the reopening
of our newly renovated building.
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UNION ATTACK BILL BACK
Federal Conservatives reintroduce discriminatory bill
in Senate. C-377 would require unions to report all
transactions worth more than $5000
Like a vampire rising from the grave, the federal
Conservative government’s anti-union
Bill C-377 has returned to the Senate, creating
a second challenge for Canada’s labour
movement.
“Bill C-377 is intended to unfairly penalize
workers and their unions by imposing
extensive financial reporting rules no other
professional organizations face - not lawyers,
architects or doctors - just unions,” says IUOE
Local 115 Business Manager Brian Cochrane.
“We have to stop Bill C-377 once and for
all by working with the Building Trades, the
Canadian Labour Congress, provinces and
employers to give the Conservatives a clear
message - no way,” said Cochrane. “This is a
thinly-disguised attempt to punish unions
and their members rather than working with
us to improve the economy.”
IUOE General President James T. Callahan,
speaking at Local 115’s General Membership
Meeting in September, pledged the International’s
support.
“My commitment is to help our Canadian
brothers, to fight right to work and
Bill C-377,” Callahan said to loud applause.
“When it comes to Operating Engineers,
there’s no border. If there’s a fight for Operating
Engineers in Banff, there’s a fight for
Operating Engineers in Florida.”
Bill C-377 has been heavily promoted by
the anti-union contractors association Merit
Canada, the Independent Contractors and
Businesses Association [ICBA] in BC, Labour-
Watch and other organizations intent on
hurting labour for their own profit.
Former Conservative Senator Hugh Segal
led the charge against Bill C-377 in 2013,
succeeding in persuading other Conservative
Senators to amend the legislation so severely
that it’s Tory sponsor said it had been
“gutted”.
Senator Segal said last year: “This bill before
us.... is really — through drafting sins of
omission and commission — an expression
of statutory contempt for the working men
and women in our trade unions and for the
trade unions themselves and their right under
federal and provincial law to organize. It
is divisive and unproductive.”
But after Segal retired, the Conservatives
brought back C-377 for another try.
Bill C-377 would require unions to report
on a Canada Revenue Agency website any
financial transaction over $5,000 and file
onerously detailed financial statements.
The Canadian and Quebec bar associations
have questioned its constitutionality and the
Globe and Mail newspaper denounced the
bill as a “witch hunt.”
IUOE Local 115 will continue opposing Bill
C-377 – check our website for updates – at
www.iuoe115.com
INTERNATIONAL UNION OF
OPERATING ENGINEERS
4333 Ledger Ave.
Burnaby BC V5G 3T3
If you have any questions, comments or input, please contact us.
Call 604.291.8831 or 1.888.486.3115. Email us media@iuoe115.com.
Visit our website at www.iuoe115.com
Publications Mail Agreement No. 40011378
INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS • GAINING GROUND • NOVEMBER 2014