Howling at the Moon

Why did Nova Scotia business wail wolf over first contract legislation? On Dec. 14, 2011, Sobeys announced it was swallowing whole every one of Shell Canada’s 250 service stations east of Ontario. No big deal. The day before, Empire, which controls the Canadian super-sized supermarket chain, had reported a quarterly profit of $78.1 million. Sobeys […]

The price of judicial independence… and fairness

With 760 bus drivers walking picket lines, 130 brewery workers on the edge of lockout, 870 professors voting to strike and 3,800 health care workers heading for conciliation, it’s no surprise news that 36 provincial court judges have a new three-year deal with the province passed almost entirely unnoticed. Judges don’t actually negotiate their salaries. […]

With friends like Jamie Baillie, bus driver don't need enemies

So let me see if I have this right. When workers are at their most vulnerable—when, for example, they’ve decided to join a union and are attempting to negotiate a first contract with a more powerful, perhaps hostile employer—Jamie Baillie is a champion of free collective bargaining. Let the chips fall where they may… so […]

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: 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 […]

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 […]