StrongerUnions-
Sad news that Tim Costello – who was at the forefront of thinking about how trade unions can organise globally – has passed away over the Christmas break.
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61 building service workers at the Toronto Dominion Centre in Toronto were locked-out and then fired by their employer when they refused to agree to the gutting of their collective agreement. They were forced to celebrate Christmas on a picket line almost 6 months after being forced off the job. Their union, CEP, is asking you to send a message to Cadillac Fairview, the company that manages the TD Centre. Tell CF that enough is enough! A copy of your message will go to the workers on the picket lines.
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Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year! We hope you have a good break and look forward to working with you again in 2010.
If you’ve been following our Union Advent postings, here’s a download present for you. “The Union Advantage” contains all the factoids we ran this month, and more. You can download it in pdf format to read or print.
Wishing you peace, prosperity and solidarity in 2010!
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Trade unions are the most effective tool for ensuring good health and safety at work. Put simply unionised workplaces are safer workplaces.
That is one of the main reasons that people join and stay in a union. When asked, 70% of new trade union
members considered health and safety a ‘very important’ union issue – more even than for payThere is a wealth of evidence for the union effect on safety, that has been produced over the past 10 years or so, both in the UK and abroad. In 1995 a group of researchers analysed the relationship between worker representation and industrial injuries in British manufacturing. It found that those employers who had trade union health and safety committees had half the injury rate of those employers who managed safety without unions, or had some other process to involve staff.
Source: The Union Effect. August 2004. Trades Union Congress
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Union Learning Reps increase the impact of training.
73% of Union Learning Reps and one-half of managers reported that ULRs have had a positive impact on either employer-funded or non-employer-funded training. Three out of the five managers stated that ULRs help to address employee skills gaps.
Both ULRs and managers report that ULRs are more likely to have had a positive influence in increasing employee participation in training where ULRs are active, where managers value their activities, and where managers negotiate with union representatives when deciding training matters.
Source: The impact of the union learning representative: A survey of ULRs and their employers. Bacon N, Hoque K. Nottingham University Business School. April 2009
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Unions work to secure jobs in the recession.
At the car manufacturers Toyota, Unite union representative Peter Tsouvallaris says “members are reminded daily of the tremendous insecurity the recession has brought to our industry”. After negotiations with management at Toyota, and faced with cuts in jobs and wages, the union has been able to recommend measures that as Peter says “will present a real opportunity to restore some measure of stability to Toyota in the coming months”.
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Legal expertise and advice.
Through the union’s own legal officers or through specialist solicitors, union full time officers and representatives have access to advice on legal aspects of working life from employment contracts, harassment, redundancy, pensions or equalities issues.
Through the union, members have an access to justice which may otherwise have been denied to them either because of a lack of knowledge of their legal rights or because they may not have the financial wherewithall to afford it.
Owen Tudor
