Wade Rathke: Chief Organizer Blog » CAW http://chieforganizer.org Founder of ACORN, Chief Organizer at ACORN International, Author of Citizen Wealth, Global Grassroots and The Battle for the 9th Ward. Wed, 23 May 2012 15:43:21 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Freezing Private Sector Exec Pay http://chieforganizer.org/2010/09/16/freezing-private-sector-exec-pay/ http://chieforganizer.org/2010/09/16/freezing-private-sector-exec-pay/#comments Thu, 16 Sep 2010 15:21:13 +0000 dine http://chieforganizer.org/?p=3660

SEIU Canada

Toronto Sharing the pain is taking on a new meaning in Ontario, Canada’s biggest province, where there are 1 million public employees now enduring a proposed 2-year wage freeze as part of the Liberal party government anti-recessionary measures, and recently the Finance Minister publically agreed that some of these same wage controls should [...]]]>

SEIU Canada

SEIU Canada

Toronto Sharing the pain is taking on a new meaning in Ontario, Canada’s biggest province, where there are 1 million public employees now enduring a proposed 2-year wage freeze as part of the Liberal party government anti-recessionary measures, and recently the Finance Minister publically agreed that some of these same wage controls should extend to the private sector, specifically the for profit health and nursing companies that are reimbursed by the government for care.

Union leaders representing tens of thousands of private sector health care workers, like Jacob Leibovitch of SEIU Canada and Ken Lewenza, head of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) have jumped into the mess arguing that the pill would have to be swallowed at the top not just at the bottom.  CAW argues that private companies should be exempted, but when all of the dollars come from public reimbursements it’s hard to argue very long that private companies “should not be part of public policy,” as Lewenza told the Globe and Mail last month.  SEIU’s Leibovitch seems to be beating the drum more clearly that the private companies would have bear the brunt as well.

“The companies know if they refuse to get on board, it could sink one of the province’s flagship policies,” said Jacob Leibovitch, executive director of SEIU Canada, which represents 50,000 health-care workers in Ontario. He said that the idea of a suspension, freeze or cut of the payouts that the nursing home companies make to their investors has also been floated.

The big Ontario private for profit health operations include Extendicare, a huge US-based outfit and Chartwell.  You better know there’s some fierce lobbying going on to keep high flying executives and bonus babies from having to freeze their wages!

They will get little sympathy though.  59% of Canadian workers on a payroll survey reported this week indicated they would be in hot water if their checks were delayed by even a week.  More workers are saving, and even those polled that are hopeful of a raise this year, believe that cost of living will eat it up.  Canadian workers essentially believe they are threading water and in the distance seem to see a tsunami of household debt coming their way as they race for high crowd.

When even the business-based Liberals start saying executives are going to have to share the pain, you can tell that the mood is turning surly at the pay window here in the north.

]]> http://chieforganizer.org/2010/09/16/freezing-private-sector-exec-pay/feed/ 0 Finding New Ways to Organize http://chieforganizer.org/2009/04/23/finding-new-ways-to-organize/ http://chieforganizer.org/2009/04/23/finding-new-ways-to-organize/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:13:39 +0000 wade http://chieforganizer.org/wp/?p=1253  Toronto    Some of the most interesting meetings in my several days in Toronto were with our friends in the Canadian labor movement in Ontario, especially at the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), SEIU Canada, and the Steelworkers.  There’s a hunger to organize in most of these unions even though several of them are getting hammered by [...]]]>  Toronto    Some of the most interesting meetings in my several days in Toronto were with our friends in the Canadian labor movement in Ontario, especially at the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), SEIU Canada, and the Steelworkers.  There’s a hunger to organize in most of these unions even though several of them are getting hammered by the current economic implosion and watching membership plummet.  Nonetheless the organizers are open and anxious to talk about new ideas, innovations, and other things that might work in the future.
    Our friend, Colin Heslop, who heads the skilled trades department of the CAW, was interested in developments in New Orleans where he and his people had helped us build houses, but it was also fascinating to catch up with him on the organizing developments in the unusual and groundbreaking deal that former CAW President Buzz Hargrove had made with Magma auto parts.  Despite the fact that the staff and national executive board had approved this very “different” kind of arrangement with Magma including the no-strike provisions in order to organize more than 30,000 workers, predictably this “concession” had been an issue in the election for Buzz’s successor.  All that was old news now, but the agreement with Magma had only netted about 1200 workers of the expected yield to date for various reasons.
    SEIU Canada continued to be heavily engaged in pulling together the building service sector with growing campaigns in Ottawa and emerging efforts in Vancouver.  We had a fascinating discussion about living wage campaigns that are heating up in both areas and how this could feed into service-based organizing, as well as the usual wide ranging discussion about targets and opportunities.
    With our friends at Steel, we visited briefly with Canadian USW president Ken Neumann, and then hunkered down with his EA, Ken Delaney, to continue another chapter in the discussions about new innovations in organizing that we had had with him over the years.  We caught up on the work with domestic workers which had interested us last year as well as other drives with taxi drivers and university workers which have solid legs.  Ken wasted no time recognizing that the last six months had been a blur where most of the time and energy had focused on stopping the membership losses in the mounting recession and blunting their impacts.  This had been like the classic “lost weekend,” where time had stopped since our conversations last summer and only now were our friends focusing on organizing again.  
    Saying all of that it was exciting to start making plans and brainstorming with our friends and allies again in Canada.  They were also interested and supportive of the informal worker organizing we are doing with ACORN International and the lessons we have learned from organizing along “majority union” lines in Wal-Mart.  I’m still predicting big things for labor in Canada in the months and years to come.

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