Metro Transit negotiations require talking… and leadership

Whatever else one can say about the rights-wrongs of the current Metro Transit strike, it is clear city negotiators were never interested in negotiating with its 760 bus drivers, ferry operators and support staff. The contract between Metro Transit and the Amalgamated Transit Union expired Sept 1. There was just one face-to-face session—essentially a presentation […]

First-contract arbitration: the sky is(n't) falling

Eric Durnford says if working conditions in Nova Scotia now were the same as in 1984, he too would support first-contract arbitration. Durnford, a prominent labour lawyer who represents employers, was responding last week to a union presentation on why we need the law. Back in 1984, a CUPE official reminded the law amendments committee, […]

First contract arbitration: tilting the balance or righting the balance?

So Nova Scotia’s largest non-union employers are eager to preserve an unfettered collective bargaining process. They are, they claim, deeply concerned about “a third party deciding what will be the appropriate terms and conditions of employment.” How progressive. Where were they when the Harper government systematically ripped the guts out of that process during the […]

Weep not for 'unrepresented' business interests

So here’s my question. Who speaks for workers in the 82 per cent of businesses in Nova Scotia whose employees are not represented by a union? I ask this in light of the recent foofarah over Bill 100, the innocuous-sounding Act to Establish a Unified Labour Board. The Dexter government claimed it was merely tinkering—merging […]

Health care right to strike (Oct 18, 2007)

Parent’s disappointment is disingenuous So poor, put-upon Labour Minister Mark Parent is “disappointed” in Nova Scotia’s health care union leaders for refusing to meet with him face-to-face, man-to-man, cabinet-minister-to-lowly peon so he could lay before their wondering eyes the glorious, gory details of exactly how his government intends to take away their members’ right to […]

Health care right to strike (Sept 20, 2007)

Health care strikes not the issue It is intriguing to watch politically tin-eared, ideologically wrong-headed Rodney — the premier who couldn’t make up his many minds on Sunday shopping until it was too late for him to claim anything but blame — now relentlessly clutching between his teeth the chewed, spit-up bone of legislation to […]