XPost: can.politics, ont.politics, bc.politics   
   XPost: sk.politics, man.politics   
   From: ConsRCons@govt.cda   
      
   Take THAT, Stephen Harper and Cons !   
   ___________________________________________________   
      
      
   The Globe and Mail - August 8, 2013   
      
      
      
   CAW, CEP union merger suggests greater power in numbers   
      
      
      
   The Canadian labour movement has suffered from decades of decline,   
   particularly in the private sector, and an increasingly hostile   
   environment.  As Greg Keenan reports, two of the country's biggest   
   unions believe that by merging under a new leader – Jerry Dias – the new   
   union will gain power and influence   
      
   When Ken Lewenza needed a break last fall during difficult contract   
   talks with the Detroit Three auto companies, he would wander into an   
   off-track betting parlour on Bay Street in downtown Toronto to bet on   
   horse races. The Canadian Auto Workers president knew within a few   
   minutes whether his bets had paid off.   
      
   The outcome of his biggest wager – the merger of the CAW with the   
   Communications Energy and Paper Workers Union of Canada to create a   
   union called Unifor – won't be known for several years.   
      
   But it represents the boldest move by the Canadian labour movement to   
   reverse decades of decline and restore itself to a position of power and   
   influence in the national debates about politics and the economy.   
      
   "We have certainly been on defence," Mr. Lewenza acknowledged Thursday   
   as he and CEP president Dave Coles announced their decisions to step   
   aside and make way for a new generation of leadership.   
      
   The theory behind the merger is simple: Size matters.   
      
   A single union with 300,000 members that is national in scope will be   
   better able to fight back against hostile governments and powerful   
   corporations than two unions that were more regional in nature and did   
   not represent all key sectors of the economy, argues Jerry Dias, tapped   
   by Mr. Lewenza and Mr. Coles to take on the job of president of the new   
   union.   
      
   "Our combined efforts between the two unions are to make a bold   
   statement that we're going to fight to maintain the middle class," the   
   54-year-old Mr. Dias, who is a veteran CAW leader, said over breakfast   
   in the same Toronto hotel where negotiations with the automakers took   
   place last fall.   
      
   To understand how size helps, he points to the current debate about   
   whether the federal government should permit U.S. telecommunications   
   giant Verizon Communications Inc. to compete in the cellphone market in   
   Canada against domestic companies Bell Canada, Rogers Communications   
   Inc. and Telus Corp., by taking advantage of what critics say are   
   "loopholes" in the government's wireless policy.   
      
   Some 20,000 members of the new union work at Bell. As Mr. Dias sees it,   
   the merger means 300,000 union members lobbying the government, urging   
   their MPs to take a stand against Verizon and standing up for their Bell   
   brothers and sisters.   
      
   "When you add a sector like the telecommunications sector within a   
   broader union, it just gives you more say," he said.   
      
   Mr. Lewenza believes unions can still be a force if they can convince   
   the broader Canadian public that the interests of their members – decent   
   wages, sufficient time off the job and sustainable pensions for retirees   
   – are also those of Canadians as a whole.   
      
   What Unifor and all other unions are facing, however, is a hostile   
   climate among Canadians who believe they have outlived their usefulness   
   and that the very gains that they made have hurt the country's   
   competitive position.   
      
   That is reflected in part in the percentage of Canadians in the private   
   sector who are represented by a union. In 1997, 16.7 per cent of the   
   labour force was made up of unionized private-sector workers. By last   
   year, that had fallen to 13.4 per cent, even though the number of   
   Canadians who belong to unions has grown.   
      
   "You've got governments attacking collective bargaining and unions as   
   institutions," said Charlotte Yates, dean of the Faculty of Social   
   Sciences at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., and a veteran   
   observer of Canada's labour movement. "Politicians in many instances   
   have turned the tables to say it's because your neighbour has three   
   weeks vacation that we have public debt."   
      
   Nonetheless, Prof. Yates agrees that bigger is better when it comes time   
   to battle a federal government that has intervened to end legal strikes   
   and has introduced legislation to force unions to divulge how they are   
   spending their members' money.   
      
   She believes the merger came about in part because the Canadian Labour   
   Congress, a national federation of unions, has not led the charge to   
   present an alternative economic and social agenda, something that the   
   CAW has long believed is necessary.   
      
   As for Mr. Lewenza, he will not be spending his retirement at   
   racetracks, the one interest he has outside the labour movement to which   
   he has dedicated 41 of his 59 years. He plans to be an ambassador for   
   Unifor.   
      
   "I can guarantee you I'm not going on a rocking chair."   
   _____________________________________________________________________   
      
   Talk is that Mr Lewenza, well-liked and very gutsy, is going to enter   
   politics.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)