The Union Forum - July-Aug 2008 - Fishermen, Food and Allied Workers

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Oh brave new world... Remember that Canadian TV show “Here come the Seventies”? It aired from 1970 to 1973 and theorized about the inventions and trends of the future, from household gadgets to communication and space travel. It was a great show. But as good as it was, the producers and writers could not even imagine the advances in personal communication in the next thirty years. How far have we come? At my house in the late sixties, we had one telephone with a four-digit number. The phone had a place of honour in our living room, its own tall, narrow wooden table, placed respectively on our most ornate doily. The phone weighed about 8 lbs with a receiver handle so hard, you could, in a pinch, use it to hammer in four-inch nails without noticeable damage to the handset. You could not adjust the ringer, it had one 95-decibel bell similar to the alarm bell used at the West End Fire Department. If the phone rang when everyone was tucked away for the night, six pairs of feet would hit the canvas floors at the same time, all heading downstairs to the telephone. We shared the phone line with four other families and I like to think some of CSIS’s best agents were customers of Avalon Telephone Party Line. The party line was the 60’s version of the internet. It was the school for scandal. When the phone rang, it rang in all four houses, alerting and tempting about 25 of your neighbours to pick up the receiver as quietly as possible and listen in on what’s going on at the Pretty Nuthouse. In many respects, this was the forerunner of our Open Line programs. The yearly arrival of the phone book was always a high point. It was a much smaller in those days and its listings were a barometer of social status. By checking our neighbours’ listings, we knew who lost their phone, who got a new phone and who got their phone back. Families moving up the social ladder, families moving down, people married, people divorced and ultimately, an endless source of gossip. We were children of a one-channel universe. By the mid- 1960s, we had our second TV channel and shortly after that our first colour television — a giant Philco Ford, a remoteless brute, housed in a hardwood cabinet, tipping the scales at about 400 lbs. It took two wrestlers to move it far enough to get a vacuum cleaner hose in behind it. The new TV required a new antenna, it was a huge 32 limbed monstrosity and could pick up TV signals from New York and Boston although snowy and without sound. For as long as I lived in the house, I was the official antenna -tuner. Wind, hail, snow and rain could not keep me from my appointed duty of going up three stories on the home-made wooden ladder about once a week and twisting the gadget until it was in that delicate spot that allowed good reception for both TV channels. Communications have come a long way since those days. Not surprisingly, employers’ attitudes towards workers have shown very little progress along the same timelines. It’s unfortunate to hear the president of the St. John’s 26 July/August 2008 The Union Forum From the Industrial- Retail Director Greg Pretty Boards of Trade just recently speak punitively and petulantly about the poor quality of our young workforce, their poor work ethic, and their reluctance to work for low wages in our province. She implied that young people are too lazy to work. She spoke as if her employer groups still held the reins on a small job market where you were as they said, “lucky to have a job, even an abusive one!” We don’t have a shortage of workers in the service industry, we have a shortage of workers who are willing to work for minimum wage and all the poverty and abuse associated with it. Many of these workers are young women working for low-end employers who don’t pay overtime rates, often double shifting employees for straight time. Many have poor ergonomic workstations, they take a cut of their employees’ tips, they give them the most horrific schedules, make them work after their shift without remuneration, schedule no breaks in an eight hour shift, no meal breaks in a 10 hour shift, and employees are expected to be on call on their days off without remuneration. These young workers are fighting back. Employers never experienced a generation of young people like this. Armed with their phones and blackberries, they are connected like no other generation before them. They are connected in real time, in a way we have never experienced. MSN, Facebook, You Tube, MySpace and text messaging, they communicate with each other thousands of times everyday. With the world in their pocket, they can send an economic torpedo directly to the heart of the employer cash register. If you’re a nasty employer, they will give you your own page on the internet. They are a powerful group, and unlike the kids of my two-TV-channel early years, they are not easily taken advantage of at their workplaces. Through their technology, they have challenged large corporations like McDonalds, The Gap and their own small-minded employers. These kids are sharp, green and have a strong sense of justice. While my generation wrestled and wondered about technology in the 70’s, these kids, create, own, shape and drive it. Their potential for progressive, societal change is immense. Dealing with errant employers is a good first step. “These young workers are fighting back. Employers never experienced a generation of young people like this.”
Union fights to keep EI pilot projects The FFAW/CAW says it intends to fight “tooth and nail” to ensure two EI pilot projects — worth about $200 million a year to working people across the country — are extended past this fall. In fact, if FFAW/CAW had its way the pilots projects that see a person’s benefit rate calculated by using the best 14 weeks worked in the past 52 and allows someone to work and earn as much as 40 per cent of their weekly EI benefit without being penalized would be made permanent features of the Employment Insurance legislation. The union outlined its arguments in a letter to federal HRSDC Minister Monte Solberg and Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn this summer. The union has also requested a meeting with Hearn to discuss the importance of the EI measures to FFAW/CAW members. FFAW/CAW President Earle McCurdy is encouraging activists and members to join in the campaign by contacting their MP and Minister Hearn about the importance of the pilot projects to their livelihoods. At press time, information about the EI pilots, and the union’s campaign, including McCurdy’s letter, was being posted to the Union’s website. In addition a sample letter that people may want to use while emailing or writing their MPs will be available online at www.ffaw.nf.ca As well, an EI campaign kit was being developed and sent to every industrial unit chair, including the rep- All NL MP Ottawa Offices are located at: House of Commons, Ottawa, ON, K1A 0A6 MP contact info GERRY BYRNE Ottawa: (613) 996-5511 Fax:996-9632 Corner Brook: (709) 637-4540 Fax: 637-4537 Email: Byrne.G@parl.gc.ca NORM DOYLE Ottawa: (613) 996-7269 Fax: 992-2178 St. John’s: (709) 772-7171 Fax: 772-7175 Email: Doyle.N@parl.gc.ca LOYOLA HEARN Ottawa: (613) 992-0927 Fax: 995-7858 Mount Pearl: (709) 772-4608 Fax: 772-4776 St. John’s: (709) 772-7538 Fax: 772-5244 Email: Hearn.L@parl.gc.ca What can you do? - Write, call or meet with your MP. - Get your employer to send a letter of to Ministers Solberg and Hearn. - Write your local newspaper or call any open-line show. - Call your local MHA and get him or her working on this too. - Email the union with any feedback at president@ffaw.nfld.net Contact information for the province’s seven MPs is listed below. A sample letter and more information about the pilot projects is available on the union’s website at www.ffaw.nf.ca resentatives on the Industrial Council. A discussion outlining the fight-back campaign was to be held at the August Industrial Council meeting. FFAW/CAW and its members waged a similar campaign last fall when a pilot project that allowed for five additional weeks of benefits in high unemployment areas was about to expire. The union was successful in getting that pilot project extended. The two pilots set to end this fall came into effect in the fall of 2005. Pilot Project #7 allows a person’s EI benefits to be based on the best 14 weeks worked in the previous 52 weeks. This rate calculation formula means weeks with low earnings are excluded and only the best or the highest 14 earning weeks are used — resulting in higher weekly benefits. This pilot project is worth about $165 million annually to working people and is very important to fishery workers who had their benefits reduced because of low earning weeks. It was also clear disincentive to seek work unless you were guaranteed a full-week of employment. The pilot project is scheduled to end October 25, 2008. Pilot Project #8, which allows a person to earn up to 40 per cent of their weekly EI benefit before monies are deducted dollar-for-dollar is scheduled to end Dec. 6. If this is not extended, people will only be able to earn up to 25 per cent of their weekly EI cheque before being penalized. Both these measures are incredibly important to seasonal workers and other workers employed in non-standard employment, said McCurdy. “We want people to lobby their MPs, to talk with Minister Hearn, to tell their stories about how important these measures are to them,” he pointed out. “And if the employers were on the ball, they’d be demanding these measures be extended as well. After all they are always griping about how difficult it is to find workers for short shifts. “I can tell them it’s going to get tougher for them if these pilots are axed.” — Lana Payne FABIAN MANNING Ottawa: (613) 992-4133 Fax: 992-7277 Kelligrews: (709) 834-3424 Fax: 834-3628 Email: Manning.F@parl.gc.ca BILL MATTHEWS Ottawa: (613) 992-8655 Fax: 992-5324 Stephenville: (709) 643-4189 Fax: 643-5171 Email: Matthews.B@parl.gc.ca TODD RUSSELL Ottawa: (613) 996-4630 Fax: 996-7132 L’anse au Loup: (709) 927-5210 Fax: 927-5830 Email: Russell.T@parl.gc.ca SCOTT SIMMS Ottawa: (613) 996-3935 Fax: 996-7622 Gander: (709) 256-3130 Fax: 256-3169 Email: Simms.S@parl.gc.ca July/August 2008 The Union Forum 27
Page 1: FFAW CAW CAW
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Page 6 and 7: Hargrove’s support was ‘unwaver
Page 8 and 9: Every cent counts Fish price increa
Page 11 and 12: Above: George Feltham guides a dipn
Page 13 and 14: Crew at work aboard the Rowan’s R
Page 15 and 16: Going GREEN on the deep BLUE? Propo
Page 17 and 18: Every inch a sailor Fishing Skipper
Page 19 and 20: Auction slated to return for fall f
Page 21 and 22: Standing at the Adjusting older pla
Page 23 and 24: Scenes from the road Photos by Jami
Page 25 and 26: Challenging times for plantworkers
Page 27: Dale Courtney-Pevie Annie Hickey Ra
Page 31 and 32: Plan has moved in right direction d
Page 33 and 34: The science of cable-laying It’s
Page 35 and 36: Quality control Fast actions result
Page 37 and 38: It’s that time of year children e
Page 39 and 40: Another year at the office From the
Page 41 and 42: BUZZ LOOKS BACK ABOVE: Hargrove (fa

The Union Forum - July-Aug 2008 - Fishermen, Food and Allied Workers

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