From organize at bcfed.com Wed Jul 2 09:40:55 2003 From: organize at bcfed.com (John Weir) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2003 09:40:55 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] A couple of points about usage... Message-ID: <3D6D51D9DD03D611BBA700508B97628C1D816D@BCFEDNT> Just got back from vacation and had a couple of moderator requests that prompt me to provide some info about list usage. First, you can only post to this list if you are a member, - i.e. - your email address is part of the membership list. An affiliate communications rep tried to post a press release, but it did not get distributed because their address was not on the list. We can add additional addresses for other staff, if you want to have someone else posting news releases, etc. Second, you cannot post a message to the list by including labcomm at bcfed.net in a bcc field. This is prohibited as a way to deter spammers who will often send their mail as a blind carbon copy. Thanks, John Weir Director of Organizing and Executive Assistant to the Secretary-Treasurer British Columbia Federation of Labour 200-5118 Joyce Street Vancouver, BC, Canada V5R 4H1 mailto:organize at bcfed.com Phone - (604)-430-1421, Ext. 238 Fax - (604)430-5917 Websites - http://www.bcfed.com http://www.6buckssucks.com http://www.campaignbc.ca -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From RMoran at ciea.bc.ca Wed Jul 2 16:05:49 2003 From: RMoran at ciea.bc.ca (Roseanne Moran) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2003 16:05:49 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] July 3 meeting confirmation Message-ID: <4119EC095B2CFE4E80731B5776F102820ACF08@dc01.ciea.corp> Hi everyone. Just a quick reminder that we are on for a labour communicators type meeting at the CIEA office on Thursday July 3 at 2:30 pm. Bring your deep thoughts about next steps in the ILO campaign and whatever else. There is parking on the first floor of our new building's (which many of you may know as the BCTF building) parkting lot - but you have to pay. There is also a parking across the street in both directions. See you all then. Roseanne. Roseanne Moran, CIEA Communications & Policy CIEA's new address is 400-550 W.6th Ave., Vancouver V5Z 1A1 Phone 604 873-8988 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shannon at bcpolicyalternatives.org Thu Jul 3 14:59:52 2003 From: shannon at bcpolicyalternatives.org (Shannon Daub) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2003 14:59:52 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] Media Democracy Day Message-ID: Hi all, As several of you know already, I am involved in organizing Media Democracy Day (MDD), which will take place this year on Saturday October 18 at the Vancouver Public Library. Our organizing group would like to increase the presence/involvement of unions this year. I know everyone is extremely busy, so here?s a brief outline of what we?re planning and some possibilities for involvement that entail neither meetings nor a lot of work/time. About Media Democracy Day: MDD is organized by the BC chapter of the Campaign for Press and Broadcast Freedom. Most of the Campaign?s work has become focused around using MDD as a vehicle for increasing public awareness about media issues and creating opportunities for ?independent media? to network and gain access to a wider audience. The first MDD was organized in Vancouver and Toronto in 2001. Last year there were events held in over 20 countries. In 2002 we organized a day of events that included: workshops, an independent media fair, video screenings and an evening keynote panel. In both 2001 and 2002 we had a full house, and in fact had to turn some people away. This year we are planning a similar structure, with an expanded program: more workshops in two streams ? skills and issues; a more extensive independent media fair, hopefully with more labour publications present; an evening keynote, possibly with Naomi Klein. In addition, the BC Library Association and Canadian Library Association recently passed resolutions endorsing MDD, and materials will be made available to the general public via various libraries across Canada. How unions can be involved: * Participate in the independent media fair. Tables are available free for display of union newspapers. It?s a good chance to speak with members of the general public, thanks to the VPL?s provision of the promenade space, as well as to those actively seeking alternative sources of information and views. * Consider promoting MDD to your members via an article in your newspaper, email networks, or by enclosing the MDD poster in a mailing to locals/shop stewards. * Suggest ideas for workshops that would be useful to you/your members, or otherwise offer input/ideas/feedback. Anyone interested in being involved in planning/organizing MDD is welcome to give me a call. 604-801-5509. In solidarity, Shannon Daub -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mveerkamp at cupe.ca Fri Jul 4 10:50:51 2003 From: mveerkamp at cupe.ca (Mark Veerkamp) Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2003 10:50:51 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] Top ten reasons why you know you live in Gordon Campbell's Heartland Message-ID: Hello- Below is a list compiled by various folks in the CUPE office. Enjoy! ----- Top ten reasons why you know you live in Gordon Campbell?s Heartland 1. The local elementary school is closing and being converted to a retail liquor outlet. 2. When you send your kids to school on Monday mornings, you pack their lunch and a suitcase. The nearest school is so far away that they can only come home on weekends. 3. You are an avid collector of Bermudian stamps, since your monthly electric statement comes from there. 4. You are taking your vacation at home this year because you can?t get out. The government closed the ferry and the railway, and the highway is falling apart. 5. Now that the ferry doesn?t run anymore the kids are learning how to swim. 6. Martini's have become the drink of choice at the local pub, since they come with a 'get out of jail free' card. 7. Your town council is considering asking Bangladesh for foreign aid. 8. Hospital emergency wards have begun to sell popcorn because their line-ups are longer than line-ups at Cineplex. 9. No one has seen the local MLA for so long that they can?t remember who it is ? and the MLA likes it that way! 10. A Hollywood location scout is visiting your community He is looking for a ghost town. Mark Veerkamp CUPE Communications 604-291-1940 (240) 604-291-1194 fax Get the latest news from CUPE BC Region at www.cupe.bc.ca Subscribe to cupe.news online at http://cupe.bc.ca/index.php4?id=296 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From update at heu.org Fri Jul 4 14:16:14 2003 From: update at heu.org (update) Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2003 14:16:14 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] HEU Newsletter: Health care workers, supporters rally against privatizing seniors' care Message-ID: <939F74432D62C94F8F4795A0A09F491601950534@mx1.heu.org> labcomm at bcfed.net HEU NEWSLETTER JULY 3, 2003 Health care workers, supporters rally against privatizing seniors' care Simon Fraser Lodge is first long-term care facility in north to contract out health care WITH ONLY a few hours notice, 50 people turned out to an early afternoon rally Thursday, July 3, to protest contracting-out plans at Prince George's Simon Fraser Lodge - a privately-run, publicly-funded long-term facility that's poised to lay off 140 health care workers who are members of the Hospital Employees' Union (CUPE). As the workers and their supporters marched up and down in front of the Lodge, several residents came out to join in the protest, picking up HEU flags and signs to wave at passers by. One resident spontaneously took hold of a blow horn to express his disappointment and hurt at the Lodge's decision "to fire my family." Several health care workers spoke to the crowd about the importance of keeping public health care intact at Simon Fraser Lodge, which is home to more than 130 residents. They also appealed to the administration to seek alternatives to contracting out and to recognize the importance of maintaining quality services for the seniors they serve. "Why throw out a long-time, dedicated health care team that's been part of the lives of residents and their families for many, many years when we're more than willing to look for a solution?" asked local HEU Chair Cyndie Stevens. Later that evening, HEU members held a meeting with more than 30 family members to answer their questions, hear their concerns, and invite them to join in the struggle to protect public health care and keep dedicated workers on the job. Their first action is a family-led petition campaign to seek support for quality resident care. Simon Fraser Lodge, which is owned by the multinational Buron Health Care, a subsidiary of Buron Construction, is the first long-term care home in the north to contract out its health care team. Workers affected include housekeeping, laundry, dietary, recreation, maintenance and care aides. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: This email address is NOT monitored for incoming mail except address changes and subscription requests. All e-mail, other than address changes, must be sent to heu at heu.org in order to be forwarded to the appropriate departments. To unsubscribe from this email list, reply to sender with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. If you find you have been unintentionally removed from this list and wish to re-subscribe, send an email to update at heu.org with subscribe in the subject line. Please include your name and what facility you work at (if you work in a facility) in the body of the message. All of the information and addresses in this email list are kept strictly confidential to the Hospital Employees' Union. From Mary.Rowles at bcgeu.ca Fri Jul 4 14:39:34 2003 From: Mary.Rowles at bcgeu.ca (Rowles, Mary) Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2003 14:39:34 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] Top ten reasons why you know you live in Gordon Campbell's Heartland Message-ID: <517DADDBB3EDAF44A2620DCB53689BD6BDBE6A@exchange.bcgeu.bc.ca> Very good-but I'll bet you came up with about 30 entries. -----Original Message----- From: Mark Veerkamp [mailto:mveerkamp at cupe.ca] Sent: July 4, 2003 9:51 AM To: labcomm at bcfed.net Subject: [LabComm] Top ten reasons why you know you live in Gordon Campbell's Heartland Hello- Below is a list compiled by various folks in the CUPE office. Enjoy! ----- Top ten reasons why you know you live in Gordon Campbell's Heartland 1. The local elementary school is closing and being converted to a retail liquor outlet. 2. When you send your kids to school on Monday mornings, you pack their lunch and a suitcase. The nearest school is so far away that they can only come home on weekends. 3. You are an avid collector of Bermudian stamps, since your monthly electric statement comes from there. 4. You are taking your vacation at home this year because you can't get out. The government closed the ferry and the railway, and the highway is falling apart. 5. Now that the ferry doesn't run anymore the kids are learning how to swim. 6. Martini's have become the drink of choice at the local pub, since they come with a 'get out of jail free' card. 7. Your town council is considering asking Bangladesh for foreign aid. 8. Hospital emergency wards have begun to sell popcorn because their line-ups are longer than line-ups at Cineplex. 9. No one has seen the local MLA for so long that they can't remember who it is - and the MLA likes it that way! 10. A Hollywood location scout is visiting your community...He is looking for a ghost town. Mark Veerkamp CUPE Communications 604-291-1940 (240) 604-291-1194 fax Get the latest news from CUPE BC Region at www.cupe.bc.ca Subscribe to cupe.news online at http://cupe.bc.ca/index.php4?id=296 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From update at heu.org Mon Jul 7 10:44:58 2003 From: update at heu.org (update) Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2003 10:44:58 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] HEU News Release: Government, health authorities liable if patients harmed by health privatization, says legal expert Message-ID: <939F74432D62C94F8F4795A0A09F49160195092B@mx1.heu.org> labcomm at bcfed.net News Releases July 7, 2003 Government, health authorities liable if patients harmed by health privatization, says legal expert The B.C. government and its six health authorities can't sidestep their legal responsibility to keep patients safe, and would still be held liable if patients are in any way harmed by poor infection control and cleaning practices at hospitals where health care support services like housekeeping have been privatized, says a respected Vancouver liability lawyer. "It is reasonable to assume," says David Rosenberg, "that members of the public who are admitted to hospitals expect that the provincial government is taking appropriate precautions to ensure that all of the services, including hygiene within the facilities, are being provided in a reasonable manner. "If it turns out contracted services are sub-standard and cause the spread of infectious disease, then health authorities and the provincial government would be liable," for the harm caused to patients, he writes in a legal opinion prepared for the Hospital Employees' Union (CUPE). Simply put, "liability cannot be avoided by contracting out," warns Rosenberg, who also serves as an adjunct professor of law at UBC. HEU asked Rosenberg to review the jurisprudence and precedents about liability in circumstances of privatization, says spokesperson Zorica Bosancic, out of concern that the Campbell Liberals and B.C. health authorities are ignoring compelling evidence that standards of cleanliness and infection control decline when hospital housekeeping services are contracted out. "Housekeepers and cleaners are the first line of defense in any health care facility's infection control protocols," says Bosancic. "But Victoria is turning a blind eye to the fact that privatization of these important services puts patients at risk." "In its drive to privatize, the government faces significant hurdles," says Bosancic. "Cost savings remain unclear, the health authorities lose accountability over the provision of services, and they face legal liability over the delivery of services they can't control which taxpayers will be on the hook for. "It really makes you wonder why they're bothering at all to privatize health services." While Rosenberg's opinion focused on housekeeping services, Bosancic says the same legal principles would apply to a patient harmed by the privatization of other important support services like laundry and security. Rosenberg is available for media comment. The full text of Rosenberg's legal opinion is available in pdf and Microsoft Word format. Go to http://www.heu.org/rosenberg_legal_opinion-final.doc for Microsoft Word document. Go to http://www.heu.org/rosenberg_legal_opinion-final.pdf for document in pdf format. To view pdf files you need Adobe Acrobat Reader which is available free from http://www.adobe.com/ -30- Contact: Stephen Howard, HEU communications director 604-240-8525 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: This email address is NOT monitored for incoming mail except address changes and subscription requests. All e-mail, other than address changes, must be sent to mailto:heu at heu.org in order to be forwarded to the appropriate departments. To unsubscribe from this email list, reply to sender with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. If you find you have been unintentionally removed from this list and wish to re-subscribe, send an email to mailto:update at heu.org with subscribe in the subject line. Please include your name and what facility you work at (if you work in a facility) in the body of the message. All of the information and addresses in this email list are kept strictly confidential to the Hospital Employees' Union. From update at heu.org Tue Jul 8 09:45:04 2003 From: update at heu.org (update) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 09:45:04 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] HEU News Release: Inner city youth workers vote to join HEU Message-ID: <939F74432D62C94F8F4795A0A09F491601950D21@mx1.heu.org> labcomm at bcfed.net News Releases July 8, 2003 Inner city youth workers vote to join HEU Front line staff at the Dusk to Dawn Resource Centre, a night drop-in for street youth operated by Family Services of Greater Vancouver, have become the youngest group of workers to join the Hospital Employees' Union (CUPE). "We're honored these 16 young people chose HEU to stand with them - not only in their efforts to create a fairer working environment for themselves, but in their day-to-day work to improve the health and well being of youth in Vancouver's inner city," said HEU spokesperson Zorica Bosancic. HEU's newest members, whose employment requires them to be age 26 or under, provide a unique range of front line services for street youth including access to basic services, information, peer counseling, referrals and support. Many have previously lived on the streets themselves. Although the vote to joint HEU was held June 13, the ballot box had been sealed in response to employer objections regarding the certification. It was opened and ballots counted yesterday following an oral decision from the Labour Relations Board on July 3. The Dusk to Dawn workers join HEU members from St. James Community Service Society, Central City Lodge, and the Downtown Eastside Youth Activities Society who also provide services in Vancouver's inner city. -30- Contact: Patty Gibson, communications officer, 604-456-7007 (direct); 604-328-7393 (cell) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: This email address is NOT monitored for incoming mail except address changes and subscription requests. All e-mail, other than address changes, must be sent to heu at heu.org in order to be forwarded to the appropriate departments. To unsubscribe from this email list, reply to sender with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. If you find you have been unintentionally removed from this list and wish to re-subscribe, send an email to update at heu.org with subscribe in the subject line. Please include your name and what facility you work at (if you work in a facility) in the body of the message. All of the information and addresses in this email list are kept strictly confidential to the Hospital Employees' Union. From RMoran at ciea.bc.ca Tue Jul 8 16:02:24 2003 From: RMoran at ciea.bc.ca (Roseanne Moran) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 16:02:24 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps Message-ID: <4119EC095B2CFE4E80731B5776F102820ACF2F@dc01.ciea.corp> Hello to everyone. On July 3 we had a small, but productive meeting of those labour communicators who were interested in discussing how to wind up our LabourStart ILO campaign and what our next steps should be. The urgency of this message is to let you take a look at the news release and get sign on if possible...... read on. At our meeting, we agreed to recommend the following strategy to our unions. We will need to confirm the strategy in a more formal way and I will ask Stephen Howard to take that on over the next month while I am on holidays if that is okay. We agreed that we would end the LabourStart campaign on the ILO with the issuing of a news release. Dileep Athaide from CIEA will be the nominal spokesperson but as you will see from the attached news release, the message is a pretty universal one. We agreed that given that BC is now hosting the Olympics, we had a hook that we can use to close out "phase one" of the campaign. We had a discussion about who the "group" issuing the news release will be, as there has been no real formality about the labourstart campaign. As you will see from the draft release, we hope to be able to list some unions at the bottom. The unions we know are part of the campaign are BCNU, HEU, CUPE and CIEA as we were part of the labourstart workshop that put it together. Please let me know asap if we can say that your union is part of the labourstart campaign. If we can't get something firm the release will work around it. That news release is scheduled to go out on Wednesday. In terms of next steps, we agreed that we would recommend that our unions (again - who exactly?) would launch a web page on labour day as phase two of the campaign and that the webpage would focus on the BC government's poor track record on labour-related issues. We talked about the following: Health and Safety (Bonnie will write something); ILO and the suite of legislation; women's issues - with a focus on the international report and child labour. Stephen and Roseanne will write up the webpage and send it around to the labour communicators if we get the okay to go forward on this initiative. We are looking into whether LabourStart has the capacity to host a webpage if we so choose. I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible, hopefully with a note that your union can be described as participating in the campaign. Until then, Roseanne. PS. Kathleen MacKinnon of the BCTF has let me know that the Globe and Mail will be covering the issue of child labour in its career section this weekend. The reporter is Gwendolyn Richards and her number is 604 631-6668 if anyone would like to talk with her. Roseanne Moran, CIEA Communications & Policy CIEA's new address is 400-550 W.6th Ave., Vancouver V5Z 1A1 Phone 604 873-8988 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: labourstart July 2003.doc Type: application/msword Size: 28672 bytes Desc: labourstart July 2003.doc URL: From update at heu.org Wed Jul 9 10:35:57 2003 From: update at heu.org (update) Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 10:35:57 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] HEU News Release: Formal FOI appeal launched to force FHA to release laundry privatization deal Message-ID: <939F74432D62C94F8F4795A0A09F491601951115@mx1.heu.org> labcomm at bcfed.net NEWS RELEASE JULY 9, 2003 Formal FOI appeal launched to force FHA to release laundry privatization deal First they turned to the courts to compel the Fraser Health Authority to open its board meetings to area residents. Now the Hospital Employees' Union (CUPE) is appealing to B.C.'s freedom of information commissioner to force the FHA to make public the full details of a controversial 10-year laundry privatization contract. HEU spokesperson Zorica Bosancic says a formal appeal has been lodged with the office of information and privacy commissioner David Loukidelis because the health authority formally rebuffed the union's efforts to end the web of secrecy around the arrangement. HEU had first made a request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act in January in an effort to make the details of the problem-plagued deal public. "This level of secrecy and lack of openness and accountability from a public health authority is unacceptable," says Bosancic. "What have they got to hide?" Bosancic challenges the FHA to release the contract that involves shipping dirty laundry from Fraser Valley hospitals to the Calgary plant of U.S.-controlled K-Bro Linen Systems. She says it's in the public interest to allow for outside scrutiny and independent analysis of cost saving claims and performance guarantees. "If the deal has tough performance guarantees that safeguard quality service as the FHA claims, then prove it by making the document public," she says. "In terms of cost savings, let's allow for an outside review to see if the numbers really add up. Bosancic says that existing freedom of information precedents covering similar contracts between public bodies like hospitals and private companies are already very clear. "At the end of the day, we will be successful in making the contract public. We expect though that the FHA could stall the process for as much as 18 months through procedural delays, which would obviously be counter to the public interest." Bosancic says her union has filed a separate FOI request for the recent privatized security contract between the FHA and Intercon Security, which is a subsidiary of a Toronto-based multinational. -30- Contact Margi Blamey, communications officer, 604-456-7094 (direct) or 604-785-5324 (cell) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: This email address is NOT monitored for incoming mail except address changes and subscription requests. All e-mail, other than address changes, must be sent to heu at heu.org in order to be forwarded to the appropriate departments. To unsubscribe from this email list, reply to sender with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. If you find you have been unintentionally removed from this list and wish to re-subscribe, send an email to update at heu.org with subscribe in the subject line. Please include your name and what facility you work at (if you work in a facility) in the body of the message. All of the information and addresses in this email list are kept strictly confidential to the Hospital Employees' Union. From rverzuh at cupe.ca Wed Jul 9 11:20:07 2003 From: rverzuh at cupe.ca (Ron Verzuh) Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 11:20:07 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps In-Reply-To: <4119EC095B2CFE4E80731B5776F102820ACF2F@dc01.ciea.corp> Message-ID: HI Roseanne! Sorry I had to miss the meeting. I don't see a problem with CUPE BC being a participant in the campaign (phase 2). Will let you know if there is one. In the meantime, I'm sure Stephen will call if he needs any help. Cheers! R. Ron Verzuh CUPE Communications 604-291-1940 (258) 604-828-7668 (cell) 604-291-1194 fax Get the latest news from CUPE BC Region at www.cupe.bc.ca Subscribe to cupe.news online at http://cupe.bc.ca/index.php4?id=296 -----Original Message----- From: labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net [mailto:labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net]On Behalf Of Roseanne Moran Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2003 4:02 PM To: LabComm at bcfed.net; kmackinnon at bctf.ca; Mary.Rowles at bcgeu.ca; CAROL RIVIERE Subject: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps Hello to everyone. On July 3 we had a small, but productive meeting of those labour communicators who were interested in discussing how to wind up our LabourStart ILO campaign and what our next steps should be. The urgency of this message is to let you take a look at the news release and get sign on if possible.. read on. At our meeting, we agreed to recommend the following strategy to our unions. We will need to confirm the strategy in a more formal way and I will ask Stephen Howard to take that on over the next month while I am on holidays if that is okay. We agreed that we would end the LabourStart campaign on the ILO with the issuing of a news release. Dileep Athaide from CIEA will be the nominal spokesperson but as you will see from the attached news release, the message is a pretty universal one. We agreed that given that BC is now hosting the Olympics, we had a hook that we can use to close out "phase one" of the campaign. We had a discussion about who the "group" issuing the news release will be, as there has been no real formality about the labourstart campaign. As you will see from the draft release, we hope to be able to list some unions at the bottom. The unions we know are part of the campaign are BCNU, HEU, CUPE and CIEA as we were part of the labourstart workshop that put it together. Please let me know asap if we can say that your union is part of the labourstart campaign. If we can't get something firm the release will work around it. That news release is scheduled to go out on Wednesday. In terms of next steps, we agreed that we would recommend that our unions (again - who exactly?) would launch a web page on labour day as phase two of the campaign and that the webpage would focus on the BC government's poor track record on labour-related issues. We talked about the following: Health and Safety (Bonnie will write something); ILO and the suite of legislation; women's issues - with a focus on the international report and child labour. Stephen and Roseanne will write up the webpage and send it around to the labour communicators if we get the okay to go forward on this initiative. We are looking into whether LabourStart has the capacity to host a webpage if we so choose. I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible, hopefully with a note that your union can be described as participating in the campaign. Until then, Roseanne. PS. Kathleen MacKinnon of the BCTF has let me know that the Globe and Mail will be covering the issue of child labour in its career section this weekend. The reporter is Gwendolyn Richards and her number is 604 631-6668 if anyone would like to talk with her. Roseanne Moran, CIEA Communications & Policy CIEA's new address is 400-550 W.6th Ave., Vancouver V5Z 1A1 Phone 604 873-8988 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amoses at bcnu.org Wed Jul 9 11:30:23 2003 From: amoses at bcnu.org (Art Moses) Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 11:30:23 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps In-Reply-To: <4119EC095B2CFE4E80731B5776F102820ACF2F@dc01.ciea.corp> Message-ID: <000001c34648$2aaf0a50$b6ae22cf@amoses01> It's fine to list BCNU among the unions involved in the campaign. But our leadership suggests the lead should be about the 2,300 letters from across Canada and around the world to Campbell. My thoughts would be maybe start it with: "BC Premier Gordon Campbell hasn't replied to a single one of the 2,300 letters he has received from across Canada and around the world urging him to stop violating recognized international labour standards and fundamental labour and human rights. "The letters stemmed from the decision last March by the International Labour Organization - an agency of the United Nations - that six labour laws passed by the Liberals violated. "Today BC unions are ending the first phase of an international campaign and laying the groundwork for the next steps to press the Campbell government to comply with the ILO ruling. "In early May. "Speaking on behalf of the unions. Art -----Original Message----- From: labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net [mailto:labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net] On Behalf Of Roseanne Moran Sent: July 8, 2003 4:02 PM To: LabComm at bcfed.net; kmackinnon at bctf.ca; Mary.Rowles at bcgeu.ca; CAROL RIVIERE Subject: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps Hello to everyone. On July 3 we had a small, but productive meeting of those labour communicators who were interested in discussing how to wind up our LabourStart ILO campaign and what our next steps should be. The urgency of this message is to let you take a look at the news release and get sign on if possible.. read on. At our meeting, we agreed to recommend the following strategy to our unions. We will need to confirm the strategy in a more formal way and I will ask Stephen Howard to take that on over the next month while I am on holidays if that is okay. We agreed that we would end the LabourStart campaign on the ILO with the issuing of a news release. Dileep Athaide from CIEA will be the nominal spokesperson but as you will see from the attached news release, the message is a pretty universal one. We agreed that given that BC is now hosting the Olympics, we had a hook that we can use to close out "phase one" of the campaign. We had a discussion about who the "group" issuing the news release will be, as there has been no real formality about the labourstart campaign. As you will see from the draft release, we hope to be able to list some unions at the bottom. The unions we know are part of the campaign are BCNU, HEU, CUPE and CIEA as we were part of the labourstart workshop that put it together. Please let me know asap if we can say that your union is part of the labourstart campaign. If we can't get something firm the release will work around it. That news release is scheduled to go out on Wednesday. In terms of next steps, we agreed that we would recommend that our unions (again - who exactly?) would launch a web page on labour day as phase two of the campaign and that the webpage would focus on the BC government's poor track record on labour-related issues. We talked about the following: Health and Safety (Bonnie will write something); ILO and the suite of legislation; women's issues - with a focus on the international report and child labour. Stephen and Roseanne will write up the webpage and send it around to the labour communicators if we get the okay to go forward on this initiative. We are looking into whether LabourStart has the capacity to host a webpage if we so choose. I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible, hopefully with a note that your union can be described as participating in the campaign. Until then, Roseanne. PS. Kathleen MacKinnon of the BCTF has let me know that the Globe and Mail will be covering the issue of child labour in its career section this weekend. The reporter is Gwendolyn Richards and her number is 604 631-6668 if anyone would like to talk with her. Roseanne Moran, CIEA Communications & Policy CIEA's new address is 400-550 W.6th Ave., Vancouver V5Z 1A1 Phone 604 873-8988 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From update at heu.org Wed Jul 9 15:02:51 2003 From: update at heu.org (update) Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 15:02:51 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] HEU Newsletter: Pleasant View care aides win support of Mission mayor and councillors Message-ID: <939F74432D62C94F8F4795A0A09F4916019B46A6@mx1.heu.org> labcomm at bcfed.net HEU NEWSLETTER July 9 2003 Pleasant View care aides win support of Mission mayor and councillors Council to urge HEABC to allow long-term care facility to negotiate with HEU C ARE AIDES FROM THE PLEASANT VIEW CARE HOME have won the support of Mission Council in their fight to preserve quality resident care services and save their jobs. After listening to a presentation by a delegation of Pleasant View care aides on the impact of contracting out on the quality of care for seniors Monday evening, Mission Council all voted in favour of writing to the Health Employers Association of B.C. asking that its member residential care facilities, including the Pleasant View Housing Society, be allowed to negotiate directly with the Hospital Employees' Union in order to avoid laying off long-time staff and contracting out their work. HEU spokesperson Zorica Bosancic welcomed Council's support and called on Pleasant View officials again to meet with the union. "Pleasant View has an opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to quality seniors' care and its appreciation of long-serving, experienced caregivers by sitting down and negotiating a new contract immediately," said Bosancic. "It's the right thing to do for the residents, for the workers and for the community of Mission." Council also passed a complementary motion to inform the Union of B.C. Municipalities about the situation at Pleasant View as an example of what is happening to long-term care for seniors in B.C. Despite widespread public concern about the contracting out of resident care services at Pleasant View, the administrator may go ahead and layoff 46 residential attendants (care aides), activity workers and maintenance staff before the end of the week. The facility's housekeeping, laundry and food services employees lost their jobs earlier this year and their work has been contracted out to a private company. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: This email address is NOT monitored for incoming mail except address changes and subscription requests. All e-mail, other than address changes, must be sent to heu at heu.org in order to be forwarded to the appropriate departments. To unsubscribe from this email list, reply to sender with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. If you find you have been unintentionally removed from this list and wish to re-subscribe, send an email to update at heu.org with subscribe in the subject line. Please include your name and what facility you work at (if you work in a facility) in the body of the message. All of the information and addresses in this email list are kept strictly confidential to the Hospital Employees' Union. From RMoran at ciea.bc.ca Wed Jul 9 15:03:29 2003 From: RMoran at ciea.bc.ca (Roseanne Moran) Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 15:03:29 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps Message-ID: <4119EC095B2CFE4E80731B5776F102820B05F2@dc01.ciea.corp> Hi Art and everyone. I will try to do some re-writing based on Art's suggestions. I am hesitant to start with the 2300 letters that he has not replied to because we really don't know for sure if he has not replied. I was going to equivocate a bit around that part of the news release as it is so that I did not have Dileep saying absolutely that Campbell did not respond. We will be issuing it mid-morning. I am still awaiting word back from other unions about saying they are part of the campaign, particularly the BCGEU. At this point, I have BCNU. CIEA, CUPE BC, HEU (CUPE). I may decide to leave that part out and to leave it for a question from reporters. Thanks for the feedback. FYI -the Labourstart web site is coming down at the end of the day today. -----Original Message----- From: Art Moses [mailto:amoses at bcnu.org] Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 11:30 AM To: 'A private discussion list for labour communications.' Subject: RE: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps It's fine to list BCNU among the unions involved in the campaign. But our leadership suggests the lead should be about the 2,300 letters from across Canada and around the world to Campbell. My thoughts would be maybe start it with: "BC Premier Gordon Campbell hasn't replied to a single one of the 2,300 letters he has received from across Canada and around the world urging him to stop violating recognized international labour standards and fundamental labour and human rights. "The letters stemmed from the decision last March by the International Labour Organization - an agency of the United Nations - that six labour laws passed by the Liberals violated... "Today BC unions are ending the first phase of an international campaign and laying the groundwork for the next steps to press the Campbell government to comply with the ILO ruling. "In early May... "Speaking on behalf of the unions... Art -----Original Message----- From: labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net [mailto:labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net] On Behalf Of Roseanne Moran Sent: July 8, 2003 4:02 PM To: LabComm at bcfed.net; kmackinnon at bctf.ca; Mary.Rowles at bcgeu.ca; CAROL RIVIERE Subject: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps Hello to everyone. On July 3 we had a small, but productive meeting of those labour communicators who were interested in discussing how to wind up our LabourStart ILO campaign and what our next steps should be. The urgency of this message is to let you take a look at the news release and get sign on if possible...... read on. At our meeting, we agreed to recommend the following strategy to our unions. We will need to confirm the strategy in a more formal way and I will ask Stephen Howard to take that on over the next month while I am on holidays if that is okay. We agreed that we would end the LabourStart campaign on the ILO with the issuing of a news release. Dileep Athaide from CIEA will be the nominal spokesperson but as you will see from the attached news release, the message is a pretty universal one. We agreed that given that BC is now hosting the Olympics, we had a hook that we can use to close out "phase one" of the campaign. We had a discussion about who the "group" issuing the news release will be, as there has been no real formality about the labourstart campaign. As you will see from the draft release, we hope to be able to list some unions at the bottom. The unions we know are part of the campaign are BCNU, HEU, CUPE and CIEA as we were part of the labourstart workshop that put it together. Please let me know asap if we can say that your union is part of the labourstart campaign. If we can't get something firm the release will work around it. That news release is scheduled to go out on Wednesday. In terms of next steps, we agreed that we would recommend that our unions (again - who exactly?) would launch a web page on labour day as phase two of the campaign and that the webpage would focus on the BC government's poor track record on labour-related issues. We talked about the following: Health and Safety (Bonnie will write something); ILO and the suite of legislation; women's issues - with a focus on the international report and child labour. Stephen and Roseanne will write up the webpage and send it around to the labour communicators if we get the okay to go forward on this initiative. We are looking into whether LabourStart has the capacity to host a webpage if we so choose. I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible, hopefully with a note that your union can be described as participating in the campaign. Until then, Roseanne. PS. Kathleen MacKinnon of the BCTF has let me know that the Globe and Mail will be covering the issue of child labour in its career section this weekend. The reporter is Gwendolyn Richards and her number is 604 631-6668 if anyone would like to talk with her. Roseanne Moran, CIEA Communications & Policy CIEA's new address is 400-550 W.6th Ave., Vancouver V5Z 1A1 Phone 604 873-8988 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amoses at bcnu.org Wed Jul 9 17:06:04 2003 From: amoses at bcnu.org (Art Moses) Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 17:06:04 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps In-Reply-To: <4119EC095B2CFE4E80731B5776F102820B05F2@dc01.ciea.corp> Message-ID: <000601c34677$0dc89e90$9cae22cf@amoses01> Yeh, just start with the 2300 letters and forget about the issue of whether he has replied. Art -----Original Message----- From: labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net [mailto:labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net] On Behalf Of Roseanne Moran Sent: July 9, 2003 3:03 PM To: A private discussion list for labour communications. Subject: RE: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps Hi Art and everyone. I will try to do some re-writing based on Art's suggestions. I am hesitant to start with the 2300 letters that he has not replied to because we really don't know for sure if he has not replied. I was going to equivocate a bit around that part of the news release as it is so that I did not have Dileep saying absolutely that Campbell did not respond. We will be issuing it mid-morning. I am still awaiting word back from other unions about saying they are part of the campaign, particularly the BCGEU. At this point, I have BCNU. CIEA, CUPE BC, HEU (CUPE). I may decide to leave that part out and to leave it for a question from reporters. Thanks for the feedback. FYI -the Labourstart web site is coming down at the end of the day today. -----Original Message----- From: Art Moses [mailto:amoses at bcnu.org] Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 11:30 AM To: 'A private discussion list for labour communications.' Subject: RE: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps It's fine to list BCNU among the unions involved in the campaign. But our leadership suggests the lead should be about the 2,300 letters from across Canada and around the world to Campbell. My thoughts would be maybe start it with: "BC Premier Gordon Campbell hasn't replied to a single one of the 2,300 letters he has received from across Canada and around the world urging him to stop violating recognized international labour standards and fundamental labour and human rights. "The letters stemmed from the decision last March by the International Labour Organization - an agency of the United Nations - that six labour laws passed by the Liberals violated. "Today BC unions are ending the first phase of an international campaign and laying the groundwork for the next steps to press the Campbell government to comply with the ILO ruling. "In early May. "Speaking on behalf of the unions. Art -----Original Message----- From: labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net [mailto:labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net] On Behalf Of Roseanne Moran Sent: July 8, 2003 4:02 PM To: LabComm at bcfed.net; kmackinnon at bctf.ca; Mary.Rowles at bcgeu.ca; CAROL RIVIERE Subject: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps Hello to everyone. On July 3 we had a small, but productive meeting of those labour communicators who were interested in discussing how to wind up our LabourStart ILO campaign and what our next steps should be. The urgency of this message is to let you take a look at the news release and get sign on if possible.. read on. At our meeting, we agreed to recommend the following strategy to our unions. We will need to confirm the strategy in a more formal way and I will ask Stephen Howard to take that on over the next month while I am on holidays if that is okay. We agreed that we would end the LabourStart campaign on the ILO with the issuing of a news release. Dileep Athaide from CIEA will be the nominal spokesperson but as you will see from the attached news release, the message is a pretty universal one. We agreed that given that BC is now hosting the Olympics, we had a hook that we can use to close out "phase one" of the campaign. We had a discussion about who the "group" issuing the news release will be, as there has been no real formality about the labourstart campaign. As you will see from the draft release, we hope to be able to list some unions at the bottom. The unions we know are part of the campaign are BCNU, HEU, CUPE and CIEA as we were part of the labourstart workshop that put it together. Please let me know asap if we can say that your union is part of the labourstart campaign. If we can't get something firm the release will work around it. That news release is scheduled to go out on Wednesday. In terms of next steps, we agreed that we would recommend that our unions (again - who exactly?) would launch a web page on labour day as phase two of the campaign and that the webpage would focus on the BC government's poor track record on labour-related issues. We talked about the following: Health and Safety (Bonnie will write something); ILO and the suite of legislation; women's issues - with a focus on the international report and child labour. Stephen and Roseanne will write up the webpage and send it around to the labour communicators if we get the okay to go forward on this initiative. We are looking into whether LabourStart has the capacity to host a webpage if we so choose. I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible, hopefully with a note that your union can be described as participating in the campaign. Until then, Roseanne. PS. Kathleen MacKinnon of the BCTF has let me know that the Globe and Mail will be covering the issue of child labour in its career section this weekend. The reporter is Gwendolyn Richards and her number is 604 631-6668 if anyone would like to talk with her. Roseanne Moran, CIEA Communications & Policy CIEA's new address is 400-550 W.6th Ave., Vancouver V5Z 1A1 Phone 604 873-8988 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From RMoran at ciea.bc.ca Wed Jul 9 17:12:32 2003 From: RMoran at ciea.bc.ca (Roseanne Moran) Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 17:12:32 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] Final news release Message-ID: <4119EC095B2CFE4E80731B5776F102820ACF3A@dc01.ciea.corp> HI everyone. Here is the final news release that will be going out mid-day Thursday, July 9. Please feel free to send it out over your networks anytime after 12:30 p.m. As I indicated in an earlier email, work will have to occur on next stages of the specific ILO campaign over the next month and perhaps Stephen Howard can take a lead on that as I am on vacation. Roseanne. Roseanne Moran, CIEA Communications & Policy CIEA's new address is 400-550 W.6th Ave., Vancouver V5Z 1A1 Phone 604 873-8988 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: labourstart July 2003.doc Type: application/msword Size: 29696 bytes Desc: labourstart July 2003.doc URL: From BPEARSON at wcb.bc.ca Wed Jul 9 17:22:06 2003 From: BPEARSON at wcb.bc.ca (Pearson, Bonnie) Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 17:22:06 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] Final news release Message-ID: Hi Roseanne I'll call you tomorrow on this and a couple of other matters. I couldn't find the people I needed today to get approvals, but I think you got good participation in any event. Bonnie -----Original Message----- From: Roseanne Moran [mailto:RMoran at ciea.bc.ca] Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 5:13 PM To: LabComm at bcfed.net; Kathleen MacKinnon; CAROL RIVIERE Subject: [LabComm] Final news release HI everyone. Here is the final news release that will be going out mid-day Thursday, July 9. Please feel free to send it out over your networks anytime after 12:30 p.m. As I indicated in an earlier email, work will have to occur on next stages of the specific ILO campaign over the next month and perhaps Stephen Howard can take a lead on that as I am on vacation. Roseanne. Roseanne Moran, CIEA Communications & Policy CIEA's new address is 400-550 W.6th Ave., Vancouver V5Z 1A1 Phone 604 873-8988 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sross at bcnu.org Thu Jul 10 09:30:09 2003 From: sross at bcnu.org (Shirley Ross) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 09:30:09 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps In-Reply-To: <000601c34677$0dc89e90$9cae22cf@amoses01> Message-ID: <001e01c34700$87d6f6d0$8fae22cf@sross01> Art I get this and the HEU stuff so please stop sending to me. Thanks Shirley -----Original Message----- From: labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net [mailto:labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net] On Behalf Of Art Moses Sent: July 9, 2003 5:06 PM To: 'A private discussion list for labour communications.' Subject: RE: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps Yeh, just start with the 2300 letters and forget about the issue of whether he has replied. Art -----Original Message----- From: labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net [mailto:labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net] On Behalf Of Roseanne Moran Sent: July 9, 2003 3:03 PM To: A private discussion list for labour communications. Subject: RE: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps Hi Art and everyone. I will try to do some re-writing based on Art's suggestions. I am hesitant to start with the 2300 letters that he has not replied to because we really don't know for sure if he has not replied. I was going to equivocate a bit around that part of the news release as it is so that I did not have Dileep saying absolutely that Campbell did not respond. We will be issuing it mid-morning. I am still awaiting word back from other unions about saying they are part of the campaign, particularly the BCGEU. At this point, I have BCNU. CIEA, CUPE BC, HEU (CUPE). I may decide to leave that part out and to leave it for a question from reporters. Thanks for the feedback. FYI -the Labourstart web site is coming down at the end of the day today. -----Original Message----- From: Art Moses [mailto:amoses at bcnu.org] Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 11:30 AM To: 'A private discussion list for labour communications.' Subject: RE: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps It's fine to list BCNU among the unions involved in the campaign. But our leadership suggests the lead should be about the 2,300 letters from across Canada and around the world to Campbell. My thoughts would be maybe start it with: "BC Premier Gordon Campbell hasn't replied to a single one of the 2,300 letters he has received from across Canada and around the world urging him to stop violating recognized international labour standards and fundamental labour and human rights. "The letters stemmed from the decision last March by the International Labour Organization - an agency of the United Nations - that six labour laws passed by the Liberals violated. "Today BC unions are ending the first phase of an international campaign and laying the groundwork for the next steps to press the Campbell government to comply with the ILO ruling. "In early May. "Speaking on behalf of the unions. Art -----Original Message----- From: labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net [mailto:labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net] On Behalf Of Roseanne Moran Sent: July 8, 2003 4:02 PM To: LabComm at bcfed.net; kmackinnon at bctf.ca; Mary.Rowles at bcgeu.ca; CAROL RIVIERE Subject: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps Hello to everyone. On July 3 we had a small, but productive meeting of those labour communicators who were interested in discussing how to wind up our LabourStart ILO campaign and what our next steps should be. The urgency of this message is to let you take a look at the news release and get sign on if possible.. read on. At our meeting, we agreed to recommend the following strategy to our unions. We will need to confirm the strategy in a more formal way and I will ask Stephen Howard to take that on over the next month while I am on holidays if that is okay. We agreed that we would end the LabourStart campaign on the ILO with the issuing of a news release. Dileep Athaide from CIEA will be the nominal spokesperson but as you will see from the attached news release, the message is a pretty universal one. We agreed that given that BC is now hosting the Olympics, we had a hook that we can use to close out "phase one" of the campaign. We had a discussion about who the "group" issuing the news release will be, as there has been no real formality about the labourstart campaign. As you will see from the draft release, we hope to be able to list some unions at the bottom. The unions we know are part of the campaign are BCNU, HEU, CUPE and CIEA as we were part of the labourstart workshop that put it together. Please let me know asap if we can say that your union is part of the labourstart campaign. If we can't get something firm the release will work around it. That news release is scheduled to go out on Wednesday. In terms of next steps, we agreed that we would recommend that our unions (again - who exactly?) would launch a web page on labour day as phase two of the campaign and that the webpage would focus on the BC government's poor track record on labour-related issues. We talked about the following: Health and Safety (Bonnie will write something); ILO and the suite of legislation; women's issues - with a focus on the international report and child labour. Stephen and Roseanne will write up the webpage and send it around to the labour communicators if we get the okay to go forward on this initiative. We are looking into whether LabourStart has the capacity to host a webpage if we so choose. I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible, hopefully with a note that your union can be described as participating in the campaign. Until then, Roseanne. PS. Kathleen MacKinnon of the BCTF has let me know that the Globe and Mail will be covering the issue of child labour in its career section this weekend. The reporter is Gwendolyn Richards and her number is 604 631-6668 if anyone would like to talk with her. Roseanne Moran, CIEA Communications & Policy CIEA's new address is 400-550 W.6th Ave., Vancouver V5Z 1A1 Phone 604 873-8988 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amoses at bcnu.org Thu Jul 10 12:18:32 2003 From: amoses at bcnu.org (Art Moses) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 12:18:32 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps In-Reply-To: <001e01c34700$87d6f6d0$8fae22cf@sross01> Message-ID: <000601c34718$0dec6810$9cae22cf@amoses01> But nobody else in my Communications and Campaigns Officers list gets HEU releases, so you may just keep getting them until I make another sublist called Communications and Campaigns Officers minus Shirley. As for the labcomm list, you're getting my stuff posted to it because we're both on it. Art -----Original Message----- From: labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net [mailto:labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net] On Behalf Of Shirley Ross Sent: July 10, 2003 9:30 AM To: 'A private discussion list for labour communications.' Subject: RE: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps Art I get this and the HEU stuff so please stop sending to me. Thanks Shirley -----Original Message----- From: labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net [mailto:labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net] On Behalf Of Art Moses Sent: July 9, 2003 5:06 PM To: 'A private discussion list for labour communications.' Subject: RE: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps Yeh, just start with the 2300 letters and forget about the issue of whether he has replied. Art -----Original Message----- From: labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net [mailto:labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net] On Behalf Of Roseanne Moran Sent: July 9, 2003 3:03 PM To: A private discussion list for labour communications. Subject: RE: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps Hi Art and everyone. I will try to do some re-writing based on Art's suggestions. I am hesitant to start with the 2300 letters that he has not replied to because we really don't know for sure if he has not replied. I was going to equivocate a bit around that part of the news release as it is so that I did not have Dileep saying absolutely that Campbell did not respond. We will be issuing it mid-morning. I am still awaiting word back from other unions about saying they are part of the campaign, particularly the BCGEU. At this point, I have BCNU. CIEA, CUPE BC, HEU (CUPE). I may decide to leave that part out and to leave it for a question from reporters. Thanks for the feedback. FYI -the Labourstart web site is coming down at the end of the day today. -----Original Message----- From: Art Moses [mailto:amoses at bcnu.org] Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 11:30 AM To: 'A private discussion list for labour communications.' Subject: RE: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps It's fine to list BCNU among the unions involved in the campaign. But our leadership suggests the lead should be about the 2,300 letters from across Canada and around the world to Campbell. My thoughts would be maybe start it with: "BC Premier Gordon Campbell hasn't replied to a single one of the 2,300 letters he has received from across Canada and around the world urging him to stop violating recognized international labour standards and fundamental labour and human rights. "The letters stemmed from the decision last March by the International Labour Organization - an agency of the United Nations - that six labour laws passed by the Liberals violated. "Today BC unions are ending the first phase of an international campaign and laying the groundwork for the next steps to press the Campbell government to comply with the ILO ruling. "In early May. "Speaking on behalf of the unions. Art -----Original Message----- From: labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net [mailto:labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net] On Behalf Of Roseanne Moran Sent: July 8, 2003 4:02 PM To: LabComm at bcfed.net; kmackinnon at bctf.ca; Mary.Rowles at bcgeu.ca; CAROL RIVIERE Subject: [LabComm] URGENT: ILO campaign update and next steps Hello to everyone. On July 3 we had a small, but productive meeting of those labour communicators who were interested in discussing how to wind up our LabourStart ILO campaign and what our next steps should be. The urgency of this message is to let you take a look at the news release and get sign on if possible.. read on. At our meeting, we agreed to recommend the following strategy to our unions. We will need to confirm the strategy in a more formal way and I will ask Stephen Howard to take that on over the next month while I am on holidays if that is okay. We agreed that we would end the LabourStart campaign on the ILO with the issuing of a news release. Dileep Athaide from CIEA will be the nominal spokesperson but as you will see from the attached news release, the message is a pretty universal one. We agreed that given that BC is now hosting the Olympics, we had a hook that we can use to close out "phase one" of the campaign. We had a discussion about who the "group" issuing the news release will be, as there has been no real formality about the labourstart campaign. As you will see from the draft release, we hope to be able to list some unions at the bottom. The unions we know are part of the campaign are BCNU, HEU, CUPE and CIEA as we were part of the labourstart workshop that put it together. Please let me know asap if we can say that your union is part of the labourstart campaign. If we can't get something firm the release will work around it. That news release is scheduled to go out on Wednesday. In terms of next steps, we agreed that we would recommend that our unions (again - who exactly?) would launch a web page on labour day as phase two of the campaign and that the webpage would focus on the BC government's poor track record on labour-related issues. We talked about the following: Health and Safety (Bonnie will write something); ILO and the suite of legislation; women's issues - with a focus on the international report and child labour. Stephen and Roseanne will write up the webpage and send it around to the labour communicators if we get the okay to go forward on this initiative. We are looking into whether LabourStart has the capacity to host a webpage if we so choose. I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible, hopefully with a note that your union can be described as participating in the campaign. Until then, Roseanne. PS. Kathleen MacKinnon of the BCTF has let me know that the Globe and Mail will be covering the issue of child labour in its career section this weekend. The reporter is Gwendolyn Richards and her number is 604 631-6668 if anyone would like to talk with her. Roseanne Moran, CIEA Communications & Policy CIEA's new address is 400-550 W.6th Ave., Vancouver V5Z 1A1 Phone 604 873-8988 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From update at heu.org Fri Jul 11 11:40:56 2003 From: update at heu.org (update) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 11:40:56 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] HEU Newsletter: Pleasant View dumps long-serving direct care staff Message-ID: <939F74432D62C94F8F4795A0A09F4916019B4A9A@mx1.heu.org> labcomm at bcfed.net Newsletters July 11, 2003 Pleasant View dumps long-serving direct care staff Forty-six more workers axed in phase two of contracting out scheme ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON, Pleasant View Care Home issued pink slips to the 46 residential attendants, activity workers and maintenance staff as the administration moved to implement phase two of its contracting-out scheme. The workers, many of whom have more than 15 years service at the facility, provide direct care services to the residents. "This is the second wave of pink slips at Pleasant View," says HEU spokesperson Zorica Bosancic. She notes that 21 housekeepers and food service and laundry workers lost their jobs earlier this year when they were ousted in favour of contracting out their work to a low-waged, private company. "The workers have to deal with the loss of their livelihoods and the impact that will have on their families, but they're also worried about the Pleasant View residents," says Bosancic. "With this round of layoffs, the seniors will be losing trusted, experienced caregivers who tend to their personal and intimate care needs on a daily basis." Bosancic adds that the upheaval is completely unnecessary because the union has repeatedly asked the employer to sit down and hammer out an agreement to preserve quality care for the residents and save jobs. However, all the union's efforts have been rejected. Placard-wearing Pleasant View workers immediately took the news of the layoffs to the busy street in front of the facility. The widespread public support that the care aides have gained over recent weeks was evident by the steady blaring of passing vehicle horns. Shortly after the layoff notices were handed out, veteran care aide Laura Rath spoke of the local's efforts to get the employer to halt contracting out plans and negotiate a new agreement for the benefit of all concerned. "We've put pressure on every person we could think of who could make a difference," said Rath. "I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep unless I got out there to fight." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: This email address is NOT monitored for incoming mail except address changes and subscription requests. All e-mail, other than address changes, must be sent to heu at heu.org in order to be forwarded to the appropriate departments. To unsubscribe from this email list, reply to sender with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. If you find you have been unintentionally removed from this list and wish to re-subscribe, send an email to update at heu.org with subscribe in the subject line. Please include your name and what facility you work at (if you work in a facility) in the body of the message. All of the information and addresses in this email list are kept strictly confidential to the Hospital Employees' Union. From update at heu.org Fri Jul 11 14:42:18 2003 From: update at heu.org (update) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 14:42:18 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] HEU News Release: Ninety-three laundry workers axed at Vancouver Hospital Message-ID: <939F74432D62C94F8F4795A0A09F4916019B4E8B@mx1.heu.org> labcomm at bcfed.net News Releases July 11, 2003 Ninety-three laundry workers axed at Vancouver Hospital HEU renews calls to health authority to publicly release the private contract The Hospital Employees' Union (CUPE) is renewing calls for the release of a lucrative laundry contract between the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and U.S.-controlled K-Bro Linen Systems in the wake of a second wave of layoff notices issued to 93 workers at Vancouver Hospital yesterday afternoon. "The loss of these experienced hospital laundry workers puts patients at increased risk and is not in the public interest," says HEU spokesperson Zorica Bosancic. "Government health privatization plans mean that hospitals no longer have direct control over the contracted-out workforce and must rely on low-waged, private companies with high staff turnover to maintain standards of linen and laundry cleanliness and infection control." To date, the health authority's contract with K-Bro Linen Systems remains a secret but the union is hopeful that it will be released in the near future. "It is in the public interest to allow outside scrutiny and independent analysis of cost saving claims and performance guarantees," Bosancic says. "And it ensures openness and accountability, something that British Columbians are entitled to from a public health authority." Last week, HEU launched a formal appeal with the office of the information and privacy commissioner to obtain the contract between K-Bro and the Fraser Health Authority. Vancouver Hospital's 93 pink-slipped laundry workers - whose last day is September 13 - join 47 Lions Gate Hospital employees who lost their jobs in June as a result of the same K-Bro laundry contract. -30- Contact: Margi Blamey, 604-456-7094 (direct), 604-785-5324 (cell) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: This email address is NOT monitored for incoming mail except address changes and subscription requests. All e-mail, other than address changes, must be sent to heu at heu.org in order to be forwarded to the appropriate departments. To unsubscribe from this email list, reply to sender with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. If you find you have been unintentionally removed from this list and wish to re-subscribe, send an email to update at heu.org with subscribe in the subject line. Please include your name and what facility you work at (if you work in a facility) in the body of the message. All of the information and addresses in this email list are kept strictly confidential to the Hospital Employees' Union. From organize at bcfed.com Mon Jul 14 09:41:35 2003 From: organize at bcfed.com (John Weir) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 09:41:35 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] Infomart account sharing Message-ID: <3D6D51D9DD03D611BBA700508B97628C41C988@BCFEDNT> For the past year, the Federation has contracted with Infomart for access to its on-line media clipping service, and shared the costs of this contract with the BCGEU, HSA, CIEA, and BCFMWU. This original contract allowed us to share 10 User ID's. The contract is now up for renewal, and we wanted to identify whether other affiliates are interested in joining this cost sharing arrangement. If there is interest, we would increase our contract to the next tier and obtain 25 user ID's. In regard to cost, under the present contract, participating affiliates pay $100 per month per user ID. However, if we can interest other affiliates and increase the number of users by another 5, the shared cost will begin to decline for everyone involved. If we can reach a total of 25 users, then the cost per ID would be reduced to $65 per month. In regard to the nature of the service, Infomart allows each user to set up up to 100 "personal profiles". Each profile contains search terms determined by the user, and then each day the user receives an email of links to stories in the media database containing those search terms. You can also search the archives for past media stories. However you should be aware that there are copyright limits to how you can use the material. For example, you cannot post the Infomart material to a website or distribute these outside your own organization. You are also prohibited from copying the Infomart material to anyone who does not have a user ID, however, since much of this content can be found on media web sites, this usually isn't a problem. If you are interested in participating, please contact me as soon as possible, as we would like to finalize these arrangements as soon as possible. In Solidarity, John Weir Director of Organizing and Executive Assistant to the Secretary-Treasurer British Columbia Federation of Labour 200-5118 Joyce Street Vancouver, BC, Canada V5R 4H1 mailto:organize at bcfed.com Phone - (604)-430-1421, Ext. 238 Fax - (604)430-5917 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From BPEARSON at wcb.bc.ca Mon Jul 14 11:10:24 2003 From: BPEARSON at wcb.bc.ca (Pearson, Bonnie) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 11:10:24 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] Infomart account sharing Message-ID: John I believe CEU is on a wait list for this service. I'll forward you our previous email to that effect. Thanks Bonnie Pearson -----Original Message----- From: John Weir [mailto:organize at bcfed.com] Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 9:42 AM To: 'labcomm at bcfed.net' Subject: [LabComm] Infomart account sharing For the past year, the Federation has contracted with Infomart for access to its on-line media clipping service, and shared the costs of this contract with the BCGEU, HSA, CIEA, and BCFMWU. This original contract allowed us to share 10 User ID's. The contract is now up for renewal, and we wanted to identify whether other affiliates are interested in joining this cost sharing arrangement. If there is interest, we would increase our contract to the next tier and obtain 25 user ID's. In regard to cost, under the present contract, participating affiliates pay $100 per month per user ID. However, if we can interest other affiliates and increase the number of users by another 5, the shared cost will begin to decline for everyone involved. If we can reach a total of 25 users, then the cost per ID would be reduced to $65 per month. In regard to the nature of the service, Infomart allows each user to set up up to 100 "personal profiles". Each profile contains search terms determined by the user, and then each day the user receives an email of links to stories in the media database containing those search terms. You can also search the archives for past media stories. However you should be aware that there are copyright limits to how you can use the material. For example, you cannot post the Infomart material to a website or distribute these outside your own organization. You are also prohibited from copying the Infomart material to anyone who does not have a user ID, however, since much of this content can be found on media web sites, this usually isn't a problem. If you are interested in participating, please contact me as soon as possible, as we would like to finalize these arrangements as soon as possible. In Solidarity, John Weir Director of Organizing and Executive Assistant to the Secretary-Treasurer British Columbia Federation of Labour 200-5118 Joyce Street Vancouver, BC, Canada V5R 4H1 mailto:organize at bcfed.com Phone - (604)-430-1421, Ext. 238 Fax - (604)430-5917 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Mary.Rowles at bcgeu.ca Mon Jul 14 21:28:44 2003 From: Mary.Rowles at bcgeu.ca (Rowles, Mary) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 21:28:44 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] Infomart account sharing Message-ID: <517DADDBB3EDAF44A2620DCB53689BD6BDBEB0@exchange.bcgeu.bc.ca> CCPA is desperate for this service. Could we capture them under our wing? -----Original Message----- From: Pearson, Bonnie [mailto:BPEARSON at wcb.bc.ca] Sent: July 14, 2003 10:10 AM To: A private discussion list for labour communications. Subject: RE: [LabComm] Infomart account sharing John I believe CEU is on a wait list for this service. I'll forward you our previous email to that effect. Thanks Bonnie Pearson -----Original Message----- From: John Weir [mailto:organize at bcfed.com] Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 9:42 AM To: 'labcomm at bcfed.net' Subject: [LabComm] Infomart account sharing For the past year, the Federation has contracted with Infomart for access to its on-line media clipping service, and shared the costs of this contract with the BCGEU, HSA, CIEA, and BCFMWU. This original contract allowed us to share 10 User ID's. The contract is now up for renewal, and we wanted to identify whether other affiliates are interested in joining this cost sharing arrangement. If there is interest, we would increase our contract to the next tier and obtain 25 user ID's. In regard to cost, under the present contract, participating affiliates pay $100 per month per user ID. However, if we can interest other affiliates and increase the number of users by another 5, the shared cost will begin to decline for everyone involved. If we can reach a total of 25 users, then the cost per ID would be reduced to $65 per month. In regard to the nature of the service, Infomart allows each user to set up up to 100 "personal profiles". Each profile contains search terms determined by the user, and then each day the user receives an email of links to stories in the media database containing those search terms. You can also search the archives for past media stories. However you should be aware that there are copyright limits to how you can use the material. For example, you cannot post the Infomart material to a website or distribute these outside your own organization. You are also prohibited from copying the Infomart material to anyone who does not have a user ID, however, since much of this content can be found on media web sites, this usually isn't a problem. If you are interested in participating, please contact me as soon as possible, as we would like to finalize these arrangements as soon as possible. In Solidarity, John Weir Director of Organizing and Executive Assistant to the Secretary-Treasurer British Columbia Federation of Labour 200-5118 Joyce Street Vancouver, BC, Canada V5R 4H1 mailto:organize at bcfed.com Phone - (604)-430-1421, Ext. 238 Fax - (604)430-5917 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From SHoward at heu.org Tue Jul 15 08:18:17 2003 From: SHoward at heu.org (Stephen Howard) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 08:18:17 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] Infomart account sharing Message-ID: <939F74432D62C94F8F4795A0A09F4916FEEEFD@mx1.heu.org> Along with CUPE B.C., we have access to Infomart through CUPE national, so we're already looked after. Stephen Howard -----Original Message----- From: John Weir [mailto:organize at bcfed.com] Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 9:42 AM To: 'labcomm at bcfed.net' Subject: [LabComm] Infomart account sharing For the past year, the Federation has contracted with Infomart for access to its on-line media clipping service, and shared the costs of this contract with the BCGEU, HSA, CIEA, and BCFMWU. This original contract allowed us to share 10 User ID's. The contract is now up for renewal, and we wanted to identify whether other affiliates are interested in joining this cost sharing arrangement. If there is interest, we would increase our contract to the next tier and obtain 25 user ID's. In regard to cost, under the present contract, participating affiliates pay $100 per month per user ID. However, if we can interest other affiliates and increase the number of users by another 5, the shared cost will begin to decline for everyone involved. If we can reach a total of 25 users, then the cost per ID would be reduced to $65 per month. In regard to the nature of the service, Infomart allows each user to set up up to 100 "personal profiles". Each profile contains search terms determined by the user, and then each day the user receives an email of links to stories in the media database containing those search terms. You can also search the archives for past media stories. However you should be aware that there are copyright limits to how you can use the material. For example, you cannot post the Infomart material to a website or distribute these outside your own organization. You are also prohibited from copying the Infomart material to anyone who does not have a user ID, however, since much of this content can be found on media web sites, this usually isn't a problem. If you are interested in participating, please contact me as soon as possible, as we would like to finalize these arrangements as soon as possible. In Solidarity, John Weir Director of Organizing and Executive Assistant to the Secretary-Treasurer British Columbia Federation of Labour 200-5118 Joyce Street Vancouver, BC, Canada V5R 4H1 mailto:organize at bcfed.com Phone - (604)-430-1421, Ext. 238 Fax - (604)430-5917 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From update at heu.org Wed Jul 16 09:24:31 2003 From: update at heu.org (update) Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 09:24:31 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] HEU Newsletter: Bridge rally draws support for Inglewood Lodge Message-ID: <939F74432D62C94F8F4795A0A09F4916019B527D@mx1.heu.org> labcomm at bcfed.net Newsletters July 15, 2003 Bridge rally draws support for Inglewood Lodge Seniors care and jobs face potential threat A 90-MINUTE RALLY by front-line health care workers from Inglewood Lodge and Capilano Care Centre in West Vancouver drew supportive honks and thumbs-up signals from scores of north shore residents heading over the Lion's Gate Bridge in the morning commute, July 15. The spontaneous protest had been pulled together in response to an announcement from Inglewood's administration that changes impacting staff would be occurring at the end of July. Although those changes weren't specified, the local decided it was time to alert the North Shore community about the potential threat to services at the long-term care home. Carrying a banner that read "Act now to protect health care and jobs" the 40 protestors banged pots, blew whistles and chanted "Support our seniors, save their care" as they marched up to the bridge's west side. They were joined in solidarity by HEU president Fred Muzin, HEU financial secretary Mary LaPlante and several sisters and brothers from a neighbouring long-term care home, Capilano Care Centre. Inglewood, which is home to 200 seniors, employs more than 170 HEU members. The local anticipates future actions pending further clarification from administration regarding any changes that would impact front-line workers and the care they provide. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: This email address is NOT monitored for incoming mail except address changes and subscription requests. All e-mail, other than address changes, must be sent to heu at heu.org in order to be forwarded to the appropriate departments. To unsubscribe from this email list, reply to sender with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. If you find you have been unintentionally removed from this list and wish to re-subscribe, send an email to update at heu.org with subscribe in the subject line. Please include your name and what facility you work at (if you work in a facility) in the body of the message. All of the information and addresses in this email list are kept strictly confidential to the Hospital Employees' Union. From organize at bcfed.com Wed Jul 16 18:55:38 2003 From: organize at bcfed.com (John Weir) Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 18:55:38 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] A little political humour Message-ID: <3D6D51D9DD03D611BBA700508B97628C41C992@BCFEDNT> I don't like to bother people with joke emails, but this one is an imaginative hi-tech political satire. For a lighter moment: 1. go to google.ca 2. type in "weapons of mass destruction" including the quotation marks 3.. Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From update at heu.org Thu Jul 17 10:07:20 2003 From: update at heu.org (update) Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 10:07:20 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] HEU News Release: HEU charges Children's and Women's Health Centre, Cancer Agency with unfair labour pratices Message-ID: <939F74432D62C94F8F4795A0A09F4916019F6447@mx1.heu.org> labcomm at bcfed.net NEWS RELEASE JULY 17, 2003 HEU charges Children's and Women's Health Centre, Cancer Agency with unfair labour practices Laid off hospital workers hold solidarity BBQ as mass firings near With hundreds of health care workers about to hit Vancouver's unemployment lines, the Hospital Employees' Union (CUPE) has lodged unfair labour practice complaints at the Labour Relations Board against Children's and Women's Health Centre of B.C., including Sunny Hill Health Centre, and the B.C. Cancer Agency. The Provincial Health Services Authority awarded a privatization contract for housekeeping and dietary services at the three health care facilities in late May. As a result, more than 400 skilled and experienced health care workers will be fired starting in September. HEU spokesperson Zorica Bosancic says the union's been hard at work to find alternatives to the mass firings and create a reasonable labour adjustment strategy for the workers affected. But, she charges, HEU's efforts have been thwarted by hospital management, who have refused to engage in good faith discussions. And that, she says, is a clear violation of B.C.'s labour laws. "Many of these front-line staff have put twenty or thirty years into serving patients and our health care system," says Bosancic. "We intend to do everything we can to make sure their rights are respected and they're treated with dignity." Laid off health care workers will join together in solidarity at an all day picnic and BBQ today. When: Thursday, July 17 Time: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Place: Children's and Women's Health Centre, Heather Street entrance -30- Contact Patty Gibson, HEU communications officer, (604) 456-7007 (direct); (604) 328-7393 (cell) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: This email address is NOT monitored for incoming mail except address changes and subscription requests. All e-mail, other than address changes, must be sent to heu at heu.org in order to be forwarded to the appropriate departments. To unsubscribe from this email list, reply to sender with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. If you find you have been unintentionally removed from this list and wish to re-subscribe, send an email to update at heu.org with subscribe in the subject line. Please include your name and what facility you work at (if you work in a facility) in the body of the message. All of the information and addresses in this email list are kept strictly confidential to the Hospital Employees' Union. From update at heu.org Fri Jul 18 11:13:12 2003 From: update at heu.org (update) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 11:13:12 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] HEU News Release: Sally Ann opts to eliminate skilled, experienced health care workers; turns down offer that would meet budgettargets Message-ID: <939F74432D62C94F8F4795A0A09F4916019F6838@mx1.heu.org> labcomm at bcfed.net News Releases July 18, 2003 Sally Ann opts to eliminate skilled, experienced health care workers; turns down offer that would meet budget targets Health care workers at Sunset Lodge are deeply disappointed that an offer to help the facility deal with its budget pressures has been dismissed, says the Hospital Employees' Union (CUPE). During the past two weeks fired workers at the Victoria long-term care home, which is operated by the Salvation Army, have tabled two proposals aimed at meeting the facility's stated budget shortfalls and preventing contracting out plans that would put 60 health care workers - most of them women - on the unemployment lines. "Clearly the Sally Ann is more interested in eliminating its stable, dedicated workforce, than in finding a solution to any budget dilemmas it may face," says HEU spokesperson Zorica Bosancic. "In fact, our members offered more than the $200,000 this employer originally said it required to avert privatization plans. "Given the Salvation Army's stated commitment to help people in poverty, we are surprised they would take such a callous approach to their own workforce," she says. Many of the front-line staff have worked at the 108-bed care home since its inception 24 years ago. Referring to the high staff turnover that results from paying low wages with minimal benefits and no job security, Bosancic questions the impact this mass firing will have on the seniors who live at Sunset Lodge. "Why throw out a long-time, dedicated health care team that's been part of the lives of residents and their families for many, many years when there is a clear alternative?" The last day of work for the laid off nurses, care aides, dietary staff, housekeepers and clerical staff is August 9. Contact Bob Wilson, HEU servicing representative, at (250) 920-9091 (cell) or Stephen Howard, HEU communications director, at (604) 240-8524 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: This email address is NOT monitored for incoming mail except address changes and subscription requests. All e-mail, other than address changes, must be sent to heu at heu.org in order to be forwarded to the appropriate departments. To unsubscribe from this email list, reply to sender with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. If you find you have been unintentionally removed from this list and wish to re-subscribe, send an email to update at heu.org with subscribe in the subject line. Please include your name and what facility you work at (if you work in a facility) in the body of the message. All of the information and addresses in this email list are kept strictly confidential to the Hospital Employees' Union. From update at heu.org Mon Jul 21 16:46:19 2003 From: update at heu.org (update) Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2003 16:46:19 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] HEU News Release: Picket line up at Salvation Army seniors' home in Victoria to protest privatization Message-ID: <939F74432D62C94F8F4795A0A09F4916019F6C29@mx1.heu.org> labcomm at bcfed.net News Releases July 21, 2003 Picket line up at Salvation Army seniors' home in Victoria to protest privatization Community activists angry that Sally Ann has rejected two separate proposals to deal with budget pressures The Salvation Army's Sunset Lodge long-term care facility in Victoria is behind a picket line this afternoon, as community activists protest the Sally Ann's refusal to negotiate alternatives to privatization that would keep 60 skilled and experienced health care workers on the job. That picket line is being respected by members of the B.C. Nurses Union and the Hospital Employees' Union (CUPE) scheduled to work the afternoon shift. Essential services are being maintained to safeguard the well being of the Lodge's 100 residents, say local union representatives. The protest picket went up after a noon hour community rally today in support of HEU members who are set to be sacked Aug. 9 when the Sally Ann will contract out all direct care and support services they provide. Many of those workers have been at the facility since it first opened 24 years ago. Late last week, the facility administrator rejected an HEU proposal that would have offered contract concessions of more than $200,000 the Salvation Army said it needed to avert its privatization plans. -30- Contact: Stephen Howard, HEU communications director (604) 240-8524 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: This email address is NOT monitored for incoming mail except address changes and subscription requests. All e-mail, other than address changes, must be sent to heu at heu.org in order to be forwarded to the appropriate departments. To unsubscribe from this email list, reply to sender with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. If you find you have been unintentionally removed from this list and wish to re-subscribe, send an email to update at heu.org with subscribe in the subject line. Please include your name and what facility you work at (if you work in a facility) in the body of the message. All of the information and addresses in this email list are kept strictly confidential to the Hospital Employees' Union. From hkhaira at cupe.ca Fri Jul 18 09:28:45 2003 From: hkhaira at cupe.ca (Harprit Khaira) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 09:28:45 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] PRESS RELEASE: July 18 re: Civic workers campaign highlights poor service Message-ID: Hi All: Please find attached the above noted press release. Attention BC Division: Lori...please post to the web. Area Office Support Staff: Please distribute. BC Regional Staff: Hard copy is in your in-tray. In Solidarity, Harprit Khaira, Opeiu 491 Secretary, BCRO Communications Civic workers campaign highlights poor service Prince George ? On the way to work on Monday, residents may notice some new street signs that reveal service inadequacies plaguing B.C.?s largest northern metropolis. The signs are part of a new campaign from CUPE 399 outside workers. The signs will ask: Streetlights out? Roads need repairs? Sidewalks need repairs? Those questions represent a few of the frustrations citizens complain about to city workers every day. ?Outside workers are as frustrated and fed up as the people who stop us to ask why a streetlight has been out for months or why our sidewalks are not being repaired,? said CUPE Local 399 president Kevin McConnachie. ?They want to know why they have to put up with the crumbling state of our roads.? For city workers, the answer is simple. ?The mayor and council decided that the look and feel of our city infrastructure doesn?t merit top priority when it comes to setting the budget,? McConnachie said. In recent years the number of city employees needed to do the work in a timely fashion has severely dwindled. The public has been disgusted with the state of affairs on boulevards and parks this summer, say city workers. The low level of staffing has only allowed for occasional grass cutting. Citizens were furious with the massive dandelion infestation. Now, as more jobs come to an end, streetlight, road and sidewalk repairs will become an issue. Yet citizen concerns are met with silence from the mayor and council. That?s where CUPE?s campaign kicks in. In addition to the signs, a media campaign will call on people to express their concerns. A lobbying campaign will inform the mayor and council of the problems city staff face in trying to keep up with the backlog of work. Public information will be distributed to ensure that citizens know where the problems are at any given time. ?City managers have been trying to convince everyone that it?s cheaper to contract out work done by city workers,? McConnachie said. ?But nothing has been saved by privatizing the work we use to do, be it beautification upkeep, road or sewer work.? CUPE will be publishing information during the campaign to prove just how much more money the city is spending and how many fewer benefits citizens receive. -30- Contact: Kevin McConnachie, CUPE Local 399 President, (250) 961-1196. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: July 18 03 CUPE 399.doc Type: application/msword Size: 365056 bytes Desc: not available URL: From mporter at bcnu.org Fri Jul 18 15:54:03 2003 From: mporter at bcnu.org (Merridith Porter) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 15:54:03 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] BCNU News Release 042 Message-ID: <000801c34d7f$7c7a96e0$a7ae22cf@mporter> from Dyan for Art Moses BC Nurses' Union local 107 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: NR-042.2003.wpd Type: application/octet-stream Size: 18725 bytes Desc: not available URL: From hkhaira at cupe.ca Mon Jul 21 12:57:32 2003 From: hkhaira at cupe.ca (Harprit Khaira) Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2003 12:57:32 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] PRESS RELEASE: July 16 re: CUPE challenges BC Rail bidders to spell out benefits to communities Message-ID: Hi All: Please find attached the above noted press release. Attention BC Division: Lori...please post to the web. Area Office Support Staff: Please distribute. BC Regional Staff: Hard copy is in your in-tray. In Solidarity, Harprit Khaira, Opeiu 491 Secretary, BCRO Communications CUPE challenges BC Rail bidders to spell out benefits to communities BURNABY ? CUPE is calling on BC Rail bidders to tell communities how they would benefit from a privatized railway. ?We think the four corporate bidders should spell out in public meetings exactly how their bid would help the people of those communities,? acting CUPE BC president Mark Hancock said. ?We know the citizens of communities served by BC Rail do not know what a privatized railway would do for them or to them,? he added. ?They want and need more information than they will get from the secret government in Victoria.? ?Clearly there would be job loss and that will have an impact on local business and the community tax base,? Hancock said. ?There are potential dangers to road safety as well. ?So, letting citizens know at public meetings what is in store if the railway falls into private hands is the responsible thing to do for the successful corporate bidder,? he added. While CUPE doesn?t have members in the rail industry, it does have 5,000 members who live in communities along the BC Rail line. Part of the union?s ongoing Strong Communities campaign is to build awareness of the impact of privatization on those communities. -30- Contact: Ron Verzuh, CUPE Communications, 604-828-7668. Go to www.cupe.bc.ca for more information on B.C. Rail privatization. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: July 21 03 BC Rail bidders-2.doc Type: application/msword Size: 366592 bytes Desc: not available URL: From hkhaira at cupe.ca Mon Jul 21 13:09:52 2003 From: hkhaira at cupe.ca (Harprit Khaira) Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2003 13:09:52 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] REVISED PRESS RELEASE: July 21 re: CUPE challenges BC Rail bidders to spell out benefits to communities Message-ID: Hi All: Please find attached the above noted press release. Attention BC Division: Lori...please post to the web. Area Office Support Staff: Please distribute. BC Regional Staff: Hard copy is in your in-tray. In Solidarity, Harprit Khaira, Opeiu 491 Secretary, BCRO Communications CUPE challenges BC Rail bidders to spell out benefits to communities BURNABY ? CUPE is calling on BC Rail bidders to tell communities how they would benefit from a privatized railway. ?We think the four corporate bidders should spell out in public meetings exactly how their bid would help the people of those communities,? acting CUPE BC president Mark Hancock said. ?We know the citizens of communities served by BC Rail do not know what a privatized railway would do for them or to them,? he added. ?They want and need more information than they will get from the secret government in Victoria.? ?Clearly there would be job loss and that will have an impact on local business and the community tax base,? Hancock said. ?There are potential dangers to road safety as well. ?So, letting citizens know at public meetings what is in store if the railway falls into private hands is the responsible thing to do for the successful corporate bidder,? he added. While CUPE doesn?t have members in the rail industry, it does have 5,000 members who live in communities along the BC Rail line. Part of the union?s ongoing Strong Communities campaign is to build awareness of the impact of privatization on those communities. -30- Contact: Ron Verzuh, CUPE Communications, 604-828-7668. Go to www.cupe.bc.ca for more information on B.C. Rail privatization. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: July 21 03 BC Rail bidders-2.doc Type: application/msword Size: 366592 bytes Desc: not available URL: From weststar at telus.net Tue Jul 22 11:10:22 2003 From: weststar at telus.net (West Star) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2003 11:10:22 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] BCNU News Release 042 References: <000801c34d7f$7c7a96e0$a7ae22cf@mporter> Message-ID: <007d01c3507c$84ae7b60$c624aecc@grwcy01> MessageHi Merrideth, Could you send the text in the email? It's easier to deal with than saving to disk and opening, particularly as I don't use Word Perfect. Thanks. Regards, Bill Tieleman West Star Communications Tel 604-844-7827 www.weststarcommunications.com Read the Georgia Straight and watch CBC TV in BC Thursdays for political commentary from Bill Tieleman ----- Original Message ----- From: Merridith Porter To: labcomm at bcfed.net Sent: Friday, July 18, 2003 3:54 PM Subject: [LabComm] BCNU News Release 042 from Dyan for Art Moses BC Nurses' Union local 107 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ LabComm mailing list LabComm at bcfed.net http://bcfed.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/labcomm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From organize at bcfed.com Tue Jul 22 14:21:08 2003 From: organize at bcfed.com (John Weir) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2003 14:21:08 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] RE: Sending Attachments Message-ID: <3D6D51D9DD03D611BBA700508B97628C41C9A3@BCFEDNT> Dear Sisters and Brothers: As Bill rightly notes, it is easier for list users if senders avoid using attachments as much as possible and instead post the content in the body of the message. However, if you do wish to send an attachment, you should send it in a format that is (relatively) universal. The two prevailing formats are PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format)) and RTF (Rich Text Format). Both preserve the original format in most cases, and also have the advantage of being smaller in size than Word or Wordperfect files. One advantage of RTF is that virtually all word processing software can read the files (and save them in this format), including Windows Wordpad which is included with the Windows operating system. As well, RTF is not version sensitive, as even Acrobat PDF files are in some cases. In Solidarity, John Weir List Admin -----Original Message----- From: West Star [mailto:weststar at telus.net] Sent: July 22, 2003 11:10 AM To: A private discussion list for labour communications. Subject: Re: [LabComm] BCNU News Release 042 Hi Merrideth, Could you send the text in the email? It's easier to deal with than saving to disk and opening, particularly as I don't use Word Perfect. Thanks. Regards, Bill Tieleman West Star Communications Tel 604-844-7827 www.weststarcommunications.com Read the Georgia Straight and watch CBC TV in BC Thursdays for political commentary from Bill Tieleman ----- Original Message ----- From: Merridith Porter To: labcomm at bcfed.net Sent: Friday, July 18, 2003 3:54 PM Subject: [LabComm] BCNU News Release 042 from Dyan for Art Moses BC Nurses' Union local 107 _____ _______________________________________________ LabComm mailing list LabComm at bcfed.net http://bcfed.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/labcomm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkhaira at cupe.ca Tue Jul 22 12:34:50 2003 From: hkhaira at cupe.ca (Harprit Khaira) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2003 12:34:50 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] PRESS RELEASE: July 22 re: CUPE cites federal report showing risks of private RAV, launches national email campaign Message-ID: Hi All: Please find attached the above noted press release. Attention BC Division: Lori...please post to the web. Area Office Support Staff: Please distribute. BC Regional Staff: Hard copy is in your in-tray. In Solidarity, Harprit Khaira, Opeiu 491 Secretary, BCRO Communications CUPE cites federal report showing risks of private RAV, launches national email campaign BURNABY ? Given information in a leaked report citing great risks, CUPE is launching a national e-mail campaign today to urge members of Parliament to halt federal funding to the rapid-transit line linking Richmond and the airport to downtown Vancouver. ?The federal government has done the homework that the B.C. Liberals should have done before proposing a public private partnership for this ill-advised project,? said acting CUPE BC president Mark Hancock. ?And the private RAV comes up far short.? The B.C. Liberals pushed to have the line designed, built, operated and maintained under a P3. But the report shows that the successful private contractor would be liable for only 10 per cent of the risk. ?The federal government got it right and intelligent MPs, including prime-ministerial hopeful Paul Martin, should insist on avoiding any involvement in this questionable deal,? Hancock said. ?I wonder how people in Salmon Arm, Golden, Revelstoke or the Okanagan would feel if federal funding earmarked for the Kicking Horse Pass project ended up paying for the RAV?? he asked. CUPE has launched its e-mail campaign at www.cupe.ca to allow citizens across Canada to tell their MPs to stay clear of the deal before it becomes a costly sinkhole for taxpayers? dollars. -30- Contact: Ron Verzuh, CUPE Communications, 604-828-7668. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: July 22 03 Fed RAV report.doc Type: application/msword Size: 367616 bytes Desc: not available URL: From hkhaira at cupe.ca Wed Jul 23 16:50:21 2003 From: hkhaira at cupe.ca (Harprit Khaira) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 16:50:21 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] PRESS RELEASE July 23, 2003 City hall censors free speech, says CUPE Message-ID: Hi All: Attached please find the above noted press release. Attention CUPE BC Lori, please post to the web site. Thanks In solidarity, Darlene Nicholson, Opeiu 491 I City hall censors free speech, says CUPE Prince George ? City outside workers here are wondering if city hall is censoring free speech to avoid criticism of its policies and priorities. City hall has accused outside staff of failing to obtain a variance before strategically placing signs on public boulevards. The signs are critical of city hall?s failure to maintain infrastructure like streetlights, sidewalks and road paving. The city has demanded that CUPE Local 399 remove the signs within 72 hours. They have threatened the local with a fine of up to $5,000 if it doesn?t comply. ?What is city hall afraid of?? asked CUPE 399 president Kevin McConnachie. The workers are also asking city council and senior management to give the real reasons for the demand. ?While we have now applied for the variance, we don?t expect that city hall will approve the request,? McConnachie said. ?They just don?t seem to like the idea of their workers publicly asking them the same questions that the public asks us.? ?City bylaws seem to be inconsistently applied,? he added. One organization was given seven days to remove its signage and threatened with a much smaller fine than the CUPE workers. The B.C. Rail campaign, which Local 399 workers endorse, may not have even been required to have a variance. ?It?s time people were made aware that senior staff and elected officials make the decisions about the quality of services, not workers,? said McConnachie. ?We want those jobs done, but we take our orders and follow priorities set by our superiors.? Whether Local 399 is forced to remove its signs or not, it will continue its campaign to ensure that people are informed. ?The city may succeed at censoring our signs on public property, McConnachie said, ?But soon they?ll begin to see signs on their constituent?s lawns and find messages in other places.? -30- Contact: Kevin McConnachie, CUPE 399 president, (cell) 250-961-1196. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: July 23 Local 399 Prince Georgerevised.doc Type: application/msword Size: 55808 bytes Desc: not available URL: From hkhaira at cupe.ca Thu Jul 24 09:02:09 2003 From: hkhaira at cupe.ca (Harprit Khaira) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 09:02:09 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] RE: Sending Attachments In-Reply-To: <3D6D51D9DD03D611BBA700508B97628C41C9A3@BCFEDNT> Message-ID: MessageWe always send all of our e-mail press releases etc. as attachment, as well as pasting it in the content in the body of the message. Thank you, Harprit Khaira CUPE Communications Secretary CUPE B.C.Regional Office (604)291-1940 - phone (ext. 260) (604)291-1194 - fax e-mail: hkhaira at cupe.ca opeiu-491 -----Original Message----- From: labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net [mailto:labcomm-bounces at bcfed.net]On Behalf Of John Weir Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2003 2:21 PM To: 'A private discussion list for labour communications.' Subject: [LabComm] RE: Sending Attachments Dear Sisters and Brothers: As Bill rightly notes, it is easier for list users if senders avoid using attachments as much as possible and instead post the content in the body of the message. However, if you do wish to send an attachment, you should send it in a format that is (relatively) universal. The two prevailing formats are PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format)) and RTF (Rich Text Format). Both preserve the original format in most cases, and also have the advantage of being smaller in size than Word or Wordperfect files. One advantage of RTF is that virtually all word processing software can read the files (and save them in this format), including Windows Wordpad which is included with the Windows operating system. As well, RTF is not version sensitive, as even Acrobat PDF files are in some cases. In Solidarity, John Weir List Admin -----Original Message----- From: West Star [mailto:weststar at telus.net] Sent: July 22, 2003 11:10 AM To: A private discussion list for labour communications. Subject: Re: [LabComm] BCNU News Release 042 Hi Merrideth, Could you send the text in the email? It's easier to deal with than saving to disk and opening, particularly as I don't use Word Perfect. Thanks. Regards, Bill Tieleman West Star Communications Tel 604-844-7827 www.weststarcommunications.com Read the Georgia Straight and watch CBC TV in BC Thursdays for political commentary from Bill Tieleman ----- Original Message ----- From: Merridith Porter To: labcomm at bcfed.net Sent: Friday, July 18, 2003 3:54 PM Subject: [LabComm] BCNU News Release 042 from Dyan for Art Moses BC Nurses' Union local 107 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ LabComm mailing list LabComm at bcfed.net http://bcfed.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/labcomm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkhaira at cupe.ca Thu Jul 24 12:15:53 2003 From: hkhaira at cupe.ca (Harprit Khaira) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 12:15:53 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] PRESS RELEASE: July 24 re: CUPE hails end to private Coquihalla deal Message-ID: Hi All: Please find attached the above noted press release. Attention BC Division: Lori...please post to the web. Area Office Support Staff: Please distribute. BC Regional Staff: Hard copy is in your in-tray. In Solidarity, Harprit Khaira, Opeiu 491 Secretary, BCRO Communications CUPE hails end to private Coquihalla deal BURNABY ? Finally, a decision from the Campbell Liberals that makes sense for communities, CUPE says about the shelving of the Coquihalla highway sale. ?Now let?s make the right decision for communities about the RAV, B.C. Rail, B.C. Hydro, Abbotsford hospital and the long list of other giveaways that the provincial government has planned,? acting CUPE BC president Mark Hancock said today. ?The B.C. Liberals have wasted more than $3 million trying to get rid of the highway,? Hancock said. ?But they didn?t give a thought to what it would mean for local community economies.? The communities themselves did think about it. And they stood up and said no to the sale. ?Spontaneous actions were spearheaded by a lot of concerned people in those communities,? he added. ?They told Campbell and his gang to keep their privatizing mitts off our highway.? The sell-off plan was officially announced in May. The Liberals were preparing to lease the highway to a private firm for 55 years and raise the tolls. ?It?s hard to believe that any government would not see the insanity of this proposal,? Hancock said. ?It?s actually quite frightening to know that this kind of thinking is influencing those in power.? Hancock praised the coalition groups that led the fierce opposition to the private deal, including local CUPE members. ?When a poll shows that 92 per cent of respondents don?t want a private highway, you?ve got to be dumb as a post not to stop the project,? he said. Critics say Campbell?s decision may have spoiled his plan to take money from the ?Heartland? to pay for expensive transportation projects such as rapid transit in the Lower Mainland. Part of CUPE BC?s ongoing Strong Communities campaign is to build awareness of the impact of privatization on communities. -30- Contact: Ron Verzuh, CUPE Communications, 604-828-7668. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: July 24 03 Coquihalla deal dies.doc Type: application/msword Size: 367616 bytes Desc: not available URL: From update at heu.org Thu Jul 24 17:10:56 2003 From: update at heu.org (update) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 17:10:56 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] HEU Newsletter: Member helping member Message-ID: <939F74432D62C94F8F4795A0A09F4916019F701A@mx1.heu.org> labcomm at bcfed.net HEU NEWSLETTER JULY 24, 2003 Member helping member HEU peer counselling is the latest service available to laid-off workers L OWER MAINLAND MEMBERS directly impacted by the Campbell government's health care privatization agenda now have another resource to help deal with being laid off - peer counsellors. Fifteen HEU sisters and brothers have recently completed a comprehensive peer counselling training session that covered a number of relevant topics and included working with members who have already been laid off. The condensed training equipped the peer counsellors to respond to members' needs in a number of areas. During the week-long course, the PCs practiced basic counselling and interviewing skills, studied job search techniques, reviewed resume and cover letter writing styles and familiarized themselves with the Employment Insurance (EI) application form and the Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) training fund form. "We trained the peer counsellors because in the face of mass layoff, we're not going to abandon our members," says HEU spokesperson Zorica Bosancic. "Government and health employers have done nothing for skilled and experienced workers whose lives are being disrupted by privatization." Peer counsellors are available to meet throughout the Lower Mainland including some parts of the Fraser Valley. Member confidentiality is maintained at all times. If you think that peer counsellors could be helpful at your work site, please contact the HEU Provincial Office for more information or to set up a meeting time at 604-438-5000 or toll-free at 1-800-663-5813. Just ask for the peer-counselling program. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: This email address is NOT monitored for incoming mail except address changes and subscription requests. All e-mail, other than address changes, must be sent to heu at heu.org in order to be forwarded to the appropriate departments. To unsubscribe from this email list, reply to sender with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. If you find you have been unintentionally removed from this list and wish to re-subscribe, send an email to update at heu.org with subscribe in the subject line. Please include your name and what facility you work at (if you work in a facility) in the body of the message. All of the information and addresses in this email list are kept strictly confidential to the Hospital Employees' Union. From slunny at iwa.ca Fri Jul 25 13:22:58 2003 From: slunny at iwa.ca (Scott lunny) Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 13:22:58 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] Unions make softwood proposal to US Department of Commerce Message-ID: <004e01c352ea$9f049b50$2ca0e6c6@TRA120956001AAJ> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 25, 2003 UNIONS IN CANADA AND UNITED STATES MAKE JOINT PROPOSAL TO DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE TO END SOFTWOOD DISPUTE VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA - Four forest unions and two labour federations in Canada and the United States have made a joint submission to the US Department of Commerce (DOC) that outlines an alternative path toward a long-term resolution to the ongoing softwood lumber dispute. "The IWA has well over 10,000 members out of work today because of the punishing tariffs on softwood exports to the US and you can add to that thousands more CEP members and the many American workers who are also suffering. There is no doubt we need to put an end to this dispute and we need to do it soon," said Dave Haggard, president of the 55,000 member Industrial, Wood and Allied Workers of Canada (IWA). "The issue for us is the fact that workers, their families and our communities are the ones suffering, whether you make lumber in BC, northern Saskatchewan of Arkansas," he added. "The proposal we are supporting takes into account the interests and impacts on workers and communities." The union proposal is in response to the request by the Commerce Department for comments on its own approach to end the trade cases and represents the only multi-party, cross-border agreement on a solution to the dispute. The labour organizations that cooperated to make the submission are the IWA, the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers (PACE) International Union; International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Woodworkers Department (IAMAW); American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO); Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP); and the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). The unions have expressed concern about the DOC's requirement that Canadian provinces eliminate long-standing programs and provisions of their forest policy as a pre-requisite to removal of the punishing tariffs on softwood lumber (or any temporary export tax implemented to replace the duties). "In our view, requiring that kind of change to our forest policy will place even more hardship on workers in this country," added Haggard. "In essence, we feel the Commerce Department's cure may end up being worse than the disease." The union's alternative proposal is accompanied by a joint statement and is available on the IWA website (www.iwa.ca). For further information contact Scott Lunny (604) 329-5308 or Norman Garcia (604) 683-1117 Scott Lunny Director, Policy & Information Services Industrial, Wood and Allied Workers of Canada, CLC http://www.iwa.ca -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: nr-25July03.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 32793 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: DOC-jointstatement-25july03.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 10644 bytes Desc: not available URL: From hkhaira at cupe.ca Mon Jul 28 09:31:21 2003 From: hkhaira at cupe.ca (Harprit Khaira) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 09:31:21 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] PRESS RELEASE: July 28 re: Rossland Trail Club faces potential walkout at a crucial time Message-ID: Hi All: Please find attached the above noted press release. Area Office Support Staff: Please distribute. BC Regional Staff: Hard copy is in your in-tray. In Solidarity, Harprit Khaira, Opeiu 491 Secretary, BCRO Communications Rossland Trail Club faces potential walkout at a crucial time TRAIL, B.C.?Employees of the Rossland-Trail Golf and Country Club, members of CUPE Local 2087, have voted 100 per cent in favour of striking should their employer fail to improve the latest contract offer, currently on the table. ?Frustrated that they have been unable to settle a contract, outstanding since December 2002, eight out of 10 outside workers voted to strike as a last resort,? said CUPE national representative Lee Anne Barrett. Members are ready to sit down with a mediator in order to prevent disruption at the season?s major golf tournament in August. "We've called for mediation in this dispute," Barrett said. "The idea of disrupting the upcoming tournament is unsettling for everyone." -30- Information: Lee Anne Barrett (250) 368-1364 (cell) and (250) 364-0297 office. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: July 28 03 CUPE local 2087 Rossland.doc Type: application/msword Size: 364032 bytes Desc: not available URL: From hkhaira at cupe.ca Wed Jul 30 09:54:48 2003 From: hkhaira at cupe.ca (Harprit Khaira) Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 09:54:48 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] PRESS RELEASE: July 30 re: Who removed the CUPE signs? Message-ID: Hi All: Please find attached the above noted press release. Area Office Support Staff: Please distribute. BC Regional Staff: Hard copy is in your in-tray. In Solidarity, Harprit Khaira, Opeiu 491 Secretary, BCRO Communications Who removed the CUPE signs? PRINCE GEORGE ? CUPE is still wondering what management elf removed signs urging people to call city hall to complain about poor lighting, sidewalks and streets. "It wasn't outside workers," said Local 399 president Kevin McConnachie. "But one thing is certain, many of the signs will be back up starting tomorrow, right on people's lawns." About 70 residents have requested signs for their front lawns, McConnachie said. "And I think there will be considerably more." The signs are part of a campaign aimed at letting city council know that CUPE members are hearing complaints from citizens about the poor state of roads, sidewalks and streetlights. "A few months back dandelion-strewn boulevards were upsetting people,? McConnachie said. ?As we move into the fall, those street lights will become an important item needing repair." The local is conducting research on various projects. Next week they will start a new information campaign to keep the public informed and urge residents to call city hall with their concerns. -30- Contact: Kevin McConnachie, president CUPE Local 399, (250) 961-1196. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: clip_image002.gif Type: application/octet-stream Size: 11772 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: July 30 03 CUPE signs removed Local 399.doc Type: application/msword Size: 363008 bytes Desc: not available URL: From update at heu.org Wed Jul 30 12:54:19 2003 From: update at heu.org (update) Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 12:54:19 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] HEU News Release: VCHA housekeeping privatization bad news for workers, patients Message-ID: <939F74432D62C94F8F4795A0A09F491601A5A9AE@mx1.heu.org> labcomm at bcfed.net News Releases July 30, 2003 VCHA housekeeping privatization bad news for workers, patients It's the largest layoff yet in Liberals' contracting out scheme Today's announcement by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority that 950 hospital housekeepers will lose their jobs, and the important cleaning and infection control services they perform will be privatized to a U.S.-based multinational is bad news for both workers and patients, charges the Hospital Employees' Union (CUPE). The privatization agreement puts the Aramark Corp. in charge of cleaning operating rooms, intensive care units, and other highly specialized health care settings. "Housekeepers are a critical part of infection control measures to ensure that patients have a safe, germ free environment in hospitals," says HEU spokesperson Zorica Bosancic. "This latest privatization move will put patients at risk and will prove more costly over the long run," she warns. "Hundreds of skilled and experienced workers are expecting to get their pinks slips soon and will be fired starting early in the fall," she says. "They'll be replaced by a low wage workforce that will lack the skills and knowledge essential to maintaining a germ-free environment." Other jurisdictions like the United Kingdom have already paid a high price when they experimented with privatized support services like housekeeping, says Bosancic. "Cleaning and infection control standards declined scandalously because of privatization, and patients died as a result. "Now health authorities in Britain are contracting housekeeping services back in house to restore infection control and cleanliness standards." The VCHA announcement, says Bosancic, ends months of dread that has hung over worksites like a heavy cloud. "Many of our members - mostly women with decades of service - were overwhelmed by the news, and reacted with tears and anger." Bosancic says her union will press the health authority to live up to its commitment to give all current housekeepers an opportunity to work under Aramark. And she served notice that HEU will immediately begin organizing efforts at all of the affected VCHA sites. Earlier privatization deals with multinational companies set wage rates in the $9 an hour range. Along with the British firm Compass Plc and the French multinational Sodexho, Aramark is one of the world's big three operators. Annual revenues from its prison, food service, housekeeping and day care operations are about $9 billion. The company's CEO received about $6.3 million in pay and bonuses last year. By comparison, an Aramark worker in the U.S. is paid as little as $7.50 an hour. HEU is also demanding that the VCHA release full details of the Aramark deal so that the public is aware of what standards and monitoring provisions are in place. - 30 - Contact: Stephen Howard,communications director (604) 240-8524 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: This email address is NOT monitored for incoming mail except address changes and subscription requests. All e-mail, other than address changes, must be sent to heu at heu.org in order to be forwarded to the appropriate departments. To unsubscribe from this email list, reply to sender with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. If you find you have been unintentionally removed from this list and wish to re-subscribe, send an email to update at heu.org with subscribe in the subject line. Please include your name and what facility you work at (if you work in a facility) in the body of the message. All of the information and addresses in this email list are kept strictly confidential to the Hospital Employees' Union. From Debbie_Campbell at bcgeu.bc.ca Wed Jul 30 16:59:22 2003 From: Debbie_Campbell at bcgeu.bc.ca (Campbell, Debbie) Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 16:59:22 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] Entire housekeeping department faces unnecessary layoffs at George Pearson Message-ID: <517DADDBB3EDAF44A2620DCB53689BD6015391B6@exchange.bcgeu.bc.ca> The awarding of a five-year housekeeping contract to Aramark Corp. by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority (VCHA) will cause layoffs and scuttle efforts to reach a cost-savings agreement by management and workers at George Pearson Centre. "Our members have been in discussions with management at the facility and both parties were very close to reaching an agreement. The Health Authority was also involved in the discussions at Pearson," said George Heyman, BCGEU president. "The VCHA is clearly more enthusiastic about privatization than allowing facilities like Pearson to find creative ways to live within provincial budget constraints. Pearson management and employees are committed to achieving efficiencies that maintain high standards of care-the disruptive privatization will have a serious impact on that care." The complete housekeeping department of 44 permanent and casual employees will be laid off at Pearson. Aramark Corp, one of the three largest health care multinationals in the world, has earnings of over $9 billion. "There is no need to generate profits for a private multi-national corporation out of the care provided at George Pearson Centre," said Heyman. "All workers at Pearson are an equally important part of the rehabilitation center." "Staff are well-trained in handling the housekeeping needs that patients require. There is no need for this move by the health authority and they should put a halt to the plans now," said Heyman. "Companies wanting to provide this service will have a profit margin in mind-not the care of patients," he said. George Pearson Centre is a home for adults with severe disabilities. The people at Pearson receive specialized assistance as a result of a disability like multiple sclerosis, spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries. The BCGEU represents the 44 housekeeping staff and around 240 other employees who perform other duties like care and activity duties. -30- Contact: Colleen Fitzpatrick, (604) 291-9611 opeiu 378 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From update at heu.org Thu Jul 31 09:42:29 2003 From: update at heu.org (update) Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 09:42:29 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] HEU News Release: Efficient regional hospital laundry next on privatization hit list Message-ID: <939F74432D62C94F8F4795A0A09F491601A5ADA3@mx1.heu.org> labcomm at bcfed.net News Releases July 31, 2003 Efficient regional hospital laundry next on privatization hit list One of Canada's most efficient public hospital laundries is the next target in the Campbell government's insatiable privatization agenda. Amid the controversy over yesterday's announcement by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority that it would contract out vital housekeeping services and fire 950 skilled and experienced workers, it quietly issued a request for proposals to privatize Tilbury Laundry. Tilbury is a regional facility in Delta that provides top quality laundry services for many Lower Mainland health care facilities. "This is yet another example of the bankrupt logic of the government's rush to contract out important hospital support services," says Zorica Bosancic, spokesperson for the Hospital Employees' Union (CUPE). "Clean, sterile linen is critical for the well being of patients in our hospitals," she says. "By contracting out this service to the lowest bidder, the government and its health authority are putting patients at risk." The move - which will impact about 150 HEU members at the facility - comes less than six weeks after VCHA CEO Ida Goodreau praised Tilbury's efficient operation at a public meeting. "It's a clear sign of the ideological nature of the move," Bosancic says. "Tilbury is an example of how the public sector can provide an effective, efficient service and pay workers decent wages that allows them to live and raise families in a region with the highest living costs in Canada. "That's why the government wants to eliminate it. "Our members feel betrayed that the quality service that they've helped build over the last 23 years is being put on the chopping block." A confidential briefing document on privatization prepared for the Campbell government and obtained by HEU notes that "significant savings have been achieved through Tilbury laundry." Over the past month, Bosancic says HEU made a number of offers to meet with the VCHA to discuss ways to make Tilbury even more efficient to help deal with the health authority's budget pressures. But Goodreau personally rejected that offer. Contact: Margi Blamey, communications officer 604-456-7094 -----------------------------------------------------------------------NOTE: This email address is NOT monitored for incoming mail except address changes and subscription requests. All e-mail, other than address changes, must be sent to heu at heu.org in order to be forwarded to the appropriate departments. To unsubscribe from this email list, reply to sender with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. If you find you have been unintentionally removed from this list and wish to re-subscribe, send an email to update at heu.org with subscribe in the subject line. Please include your name and what facility you work at (if you work in a facility) in the body of the message. All of the information and addresses in this email list are kept strictly confidential to the Hospital Employees' Union. From Anita.Miotto at bcgeu.ca Thu Jul 31 15:56:43 2003 From: Anita.Miotto at bcgeu.ca (Miotto, Anita) Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 15:56:43 -0700 Subject: [LabComm] Local governments concerned over increased availability of liquor, privatization of LDB Message-ID: <517DADDBB3EDAF44A2620DCB53689BD68DE7CD@exchange.bcgeu.bc.ca> July 31, 2003 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Local governments concerned over increased availability of liquor, privatization of LDB Eighty -nine local governments across the province have passed motions expressing concern over the provincial government's plans to privatize the Liquor Distribution Branch (LDB) and expand the sale of liquor. The support the union has received makes it clear that there has been considerable debate over the government's plans. To have this many local governments debate and forward their concerns to the provincial government is very impressive. The BCGEU sent letters to local governments and they have responded with motions and follow-up letters to Solicitor General Rich Coleman, who is reviewing the government's liquor policy. Typical of the responses is this one from the District of Powell River: "We are concerned that deregulating liquor sales could increase policing costs, increased insurance costs, and increased healthcare costs due to alcohol related problems. These are all serious matters that must be addressed before implantation." Mayor Lowe of the City of Victoria writes: "Victoria wants to avoid the type of liquor related market seen in some American cities with stores clumped together competing with gaudy advertising for cheap booze." Mayors and Councils around the province have expressed the concerns of their residents and the minister is urged to pay close attention to their comments. Coleman has advised the BCGEU on two occasions that no final decision has been made on the future structure of liquor sales in B.C. and that a public service model is one of the options being considered. The BCGEU represents around 3,500 employees who work in the retail, warehousing and related jobs at the LDB. - 30 - Note: A list of local governments expressing concern over the government's plans and a selection of quotes from correspondence is attached. Contact: Jeff Fox, BCGEU Communications, (250) 388-9948 opeiu 378 *** Local governments seek input on liquor sales. The following local governments have called for a moratorium on changes to liquor regulations, sales and distribution. They have also called on the provincial government to provide a formal vehicle for public discussion and community input into these issues. 1. 100 Mile House 2. Alert Bay 3. Anmore 4. Armstrong 5. Ashcroft 6. Association of Kootenay and Boundary Municipalities 7. Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities 8. Burnaby 9. Castlegar 10. Central Saanich 11. Chetwynd 12. Clinton 13. Coquitlam 14. Courtenay 15. Cranbrook 16. Delta 17. Duncan 18. Elkford 19. Esquimalt 20. Fernie 21. Fort Nelson 22. Fort St. James 23. Fort St. John 24. Gibsons 25. Gold River 26. Grand Forks 27. Greenwood 28. Highlands 29. Hope 30. Hudson Hope 31. Invermere 32. Islands Trust Council 33. Kamloops 34. Kelowna 35. Kimberley 36. Kitimat 37. Ladysmith 38. Lake Cowichan 39. Langley City 40. Langley Township 41. Lions Bay 42. Logan Lake 43. Mackenzie 44. McBride 45. Maple Ridge District 46. Merritt 47. Nanaimo 48. Nelson 49. New Denver 50. New Westminster 51. North Central Municipal Association 52. North Cowichan 53. Northern Rockies Regional District 54. North Saanich 55. North Vancouver City 56. North Vancouver District 57. Oliver 58. Osoyoos 59. Port Alberni 60. Port Coquitlam 61. Port Moody 62. Powell River 63. Prince George 64. Prince Rupert 65. Princeton 66. Qualicum Beach 67. Queen Charlotte/Skidegate Landing Management Cttee 68. Quesnel 69. Revelstoke 70. Rossland 71. Saanich 72. Salmon Arm 73. Sechelt 74. Sicamous 75. Sidney 76. Smithers 77. Sooke 78. Sparwood 79. Squamish 80. Terrace 81. Tofino 82. Trail 83. Tumbler Ridge District 84. Valemount 85. Vancouver 86. Victoria 87. View Royal 88. Whistler 89. Williams Lake More municipal governments have the issue on their agenda and are expected to take a stand on the proliferation of liquor stores in coming weeks. Updated July 28, 2003 CEP 467 ***** Over 89 local governments have called for a "meaningful public consultation process" Sample Quotations from local government letters to the Minister Responsible for the LDB and public comments by councillors/mayors: "... the current system is working well..." "... the choice and customer service levels with the BCLDB outlets are of high standard and the employees are helpful and professional. Nothing is broken" City of Kelowna "...more public input ... concerns such as the potential for proliferation of liquor stores, community safety as a result of that proliferation, mitigation of negative social impacts of increased consumption, and the wisdom of privatizing the system" City of Prince George "Alcohol is a drug and we need to keep control of it." Mayor Randal MacNair, Town of Fernie "We are concerned that deregulating liquor sales could increase policing costs, increased insurance costs, and increased healthcare costs due to alcohol related problems. These are all serious matters that must be addressed before implementation." District of Powell River "To turn over alcohol sales to for-profit companies, without consultation with local communities on the social and economic impacts this will have with respect to job loss and alcohol related criminal offenses, is irresponsible." District of Hope "... we trust you (the Minister) ... will thoroughly consider the socio-economic implications of turning liquor retailing over to the private sector." Village of Burns Lake "... the extensive retail product and exceptional services provided by the Rossland liquor store are a vital and significant component in Rossland's efforts to escalate the economic growth and development of the Rossland/Red Mountain Area as a four-season recreation resort." City of Rossland (on the privatization of liquor stores) "they (provincial government) could be getting rid of a cash cow and instead getting a lot of cash-draining problems" Prince Rupert City Councillor (on the privatization of liquor stores) "this isn't like selling coffee or coca-cola. It's a drug" "I don't think we should just lay down and let it happen." Kamloops Councillor Terry Lake "alcohol is a unique commodity that should have unique controls ... it's known to destroy lives or families..." Port Coquitlam Councillor "Victoria wants to avoid the type of liquor related market seen in some American cities with stores clumped together competing with gaudy advertising for cheap booze." Mayor Lowe, City of Victoria "The current system, where it is sold through LDB stores, has worked very, very well for a long period of time ... the city cannot stop the province from doing, at the very least we can limit the locations of now newly privatized liquor stores to the existing sites." Councillor Tim Louis - City of Vancouver opeiu 378 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: