Unions are fighting for us
Meeting half way
Jesse Beach, volunteer staff
I was walking on campus recently, enjoying the crisp air of a beautiful fall afternoon. My classes were finished for the day and I was headed over to University Centre for a meeting at the Manitoban office. As the weather was quite chilly, and because my caffeine levels were dangerously low, I decided to stop at Tim Hortons for a double double before the meeting. To my absolute confusion and dismay, it was closed. I didn’t understand. It was only 2 p.m.. It had to be a mistake; so I calmly pulled myself together and walked downstairs to the much better known and, unfortunately, much busier Tim Hortons. It was closed, too. Now I was getting frightened. “It can’t be!” I thought. Desperately I ran to the Engineering building, surely no one would be so merciless as to deprive the engineering students of their caffeine, but alas! It was closed as well. The University of Manitoba was on strike.
Specifically on strike was the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) local 3007, the union representing U of M employees in the maintenance trades, powerhouse, general services (truck deliveries, snow clearing, refuse pickup, etc.), grounds, caretaking, residences, and food services. The union and the university initially met on Oct. 2 and, after failing to come to a collective agreement, the union went on strike as of Oct. 10 . Now it is the students who will suffer as the university will barely be able to function without the services of the hundreds of unappreciated individuals who work behind the scenes to keep this institution running without us ever realizing it. The food services on campus, while still running, are onshortened hours (which I found out myself the first day of the strike trying to make a mid-afternoon stop at Tim Hortons). All of this could have been avoided if the university had just listened to the union’s very reasonable demands and had the decency to meet them halfway.
Unions are, by definition, an organization of workers. They are designed soley for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditons of employment. This may include the negotiation of wages, work rules, complaint procedures, rules governing hiring, firing and promotion of workers, benefits, workplace safety, and policies. Unions work, and fight, on behalf of workers to ensure that they are treated and paid fairly. It is their wish that all employees have a safe and friendly atmosphere in which to work. It is these basic principles, issues that
The University of Manitoba, which is supposed to be a centre of greater ideals and higher learning, has trampled down their workers rights to the point where they cannot take it anymore.
should be considered inherent rights, that the University of Manitoba has a problem with.
It is not the place of a union to make unreasonable demands at the expense of an employer (in this case the University of Manitoba), but it has become the place of the aforementioned employer to deny requests for increased benefits and job safety.
The first aspect of any proposal will obviously be wage increases, which the university generously offered at the amount of two per cent each year over three years. CAW however, takes extreme offense to this meagre offer, as they rightly should. The university gives its own administrative staff raises between 6.5 per cent and 7.5 per cent each year. The union is simply trying to protect the interests of its members by properly representing them. If the U of M made an attempt to be fair in this one regard, treating the maintenance and food services employees fairly and equally, I am positive that the university could have made a huge step in preventing this strike.
Wages are not the only factor in the agreement that they university so callously declined. The university also deemed it appropriate to trample on the CAW workers’ health-care agreement. Health-care premiums have always been split equally between the workers and the university, with a benefits reserve fund covering the employees portion. However, the reserve fund is running out and the university now claims it is should be the responsibility of the employees to cover that part of the premium . This is not a difficult matter, nor is it an unreasonable request. CAW simply wishes that the university pay for the employees’ premiums out of the operating budget so the employees are not forced to pay their own medical expenses if they are hurt while working at the university.
There are many different terms and proposals that have been debated by the university and the union, but the simple fact of the matter is that the U of M was asked to step up and treat their employees fairly but refused. It is situations like these that continue to prove the necessity for employee representation in the workplace. The University of Manitoba, which is supposed to be a centre of greater ideals and higher learning, has trampled down their workers rights to the point where they cannot take it anymore. Let’s hope that, for our own sakes, they will soon come to their senses and at least listen to the demands of their alienated employees.
Jesse Beach is a fourth-year English student.
