CANADIAN LABOUR TORONTO:

TORONTO HOTEL STRIKES CONTINUES:

The Toronto International Film Festival is over, but the rotating strikes at Toronto hotels continue as management refuses to bargain fairly. Here's the story from Linchpin, the website of the Ontario platformist organization Common Cause.

CLCLCLCLCL

Strike Continues for Toronto Hotel Workers

By Alex Balch

Toronto, Ont - This year’s TIFF festivities may be over, but for the workers of UNITE HERE Local 75, the struggle against multinational hotel conglomerate Westmont Hospitality Group is just heating up.

Many of the over 2,000 members of Local 75 employed by Westmont are currently working without a contract – some of them since February of this year. Workers accuse the company, which owns or operates 13 hotels in the GTA, of trying to lock its employees into a “permanent recession” - despite the fact that the hotel industry has largely bounced back from the economic crisis of 2008.

“The recession is long over for these guys,” says union organizer Amarjeet Chhabra, speaking about the hotel management. “Yet they’re still using the language of the recession while they negotiate a new contract.”

“Our workers can’t put food on the table, even though many of them are doing the work of two people. It’s just not fair.”

The union has been engaged in a series of high-profile one-day strikes since late June, when workers at the Novotel Toronto Center walked off the job just as the French delegation to the G20 was arriving to check in. Since then they have increased the pressure – carrying out eight such one-day strikes during TIFF.

On Friday September 18, dozens of Hilton employees, joined by workers from the nearby Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel and union delegates from CEP and CAW, staged a picket and rally outside the Toronto Hilton, while volunteer drummers from “Rhythms of Resistance” helped to keep spirits high. The striking workers appeared energized by the extra publicity generated by sympathetic actors and tourists in town for the Festival, and vowed to continue on until Westmont grants them a fair new contract.

Chief among the union’s demands is the granting of stable hours, better health benefits and a living wage.

“What Westmont has done is dramatically cut back on hours and staffing levels. This has meant that people have basically had to work twice as hard as before, for the same rate of pay,” said Laura Mestre, a room attendant, shop steward and member of the UNITE HERE negotiating team.

“I have personally been working for three months with a torn muscle in my left shoulder. I have had to apply for ODSP [Ontario Disability Support Payments] in order to help pay for my medical costs. I’ve brought the subject up with management… but they don’t care.”

According to Chhabra, this type of injury is not uncommon.

“Most housekeeping attendants are women, and that’s a position where lots of workplace injuries occur. Attendants at these hotels are expected to clean sixteen rooms per shift. At the same time, the company has recently added extra furniture, such as double beds, to many of these rooms. So this means that room attendants have more work to do, but haven’t been given more time to do it.” The end result is a rise in workplace injuries, as attendants struggle to keep up with their increased workloads.

The attempts by Westmont to frame the negotiation in terms of a contracting economy seem to fit into a larger general narrative – that of a looming “age of austerity”. Across the western world, unions are facing a coordinated attack on the working class. In Canada, the Harper government’s response to the economic crisis has been to allow large banks and corporations to effectively manage their own recovery, despite the massive subsidies they have received from the country's taxpayers. In the hospitality sector, this has manifested itself in the sacking of unionized workers and their replacement with more precarious workers – often employed by third-party temporary staffing agencies.

Westmont’s appeal to the need for belt-tightening measures - despite a return to healthy quarterly profits - is only made more egregious by the fact that two of its primary financial partners, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup Financial, were at the very epicenter of the 2008 global economic crisis, and have between them received over $50 billion in federal funds from the US Treasury.

It is this attempt to play the unfortunate victim of circumstance, and the company's stubborn refusal to renegotiate a fair contract with its employees that Chhabra says has motivated the workers to strike.

“We want to settle… but we also want a fair contract. And we’re prepared to take any action necessary to get it.”

For more information on the hotel workers' ongoing strike, and for a list of potentially affected hotels, see: http://www.uniteherelocal75.org/jm /
To send a direct message to Westmont, contact them at their Toronto headquarters:

5090 Explorer Drive
Suite 700
Mississauga ON
L4W 4T9

Tel: +1 905 629 3400
Fax: +1 905 624 7805

CANADIAN LABOUR TORONTO:

MORE DRAMA OUTSIDE THAN IN THE FILMS:

As the glitterati gather for the Toronto International Film Festival hotel workers represented by UniteHere continue rotating one day strikes to pressure the hotel management to see reason and negotiate. Ten Toronto hotels are in strike position, and as of this writing three have already seen strike action. Here's the story from the UniteHere website.

TLTLTLTLTL

Local 75 Workers Strike Three Hotels During Toronto Film Festival

September 12, 2010

Hotel workers at the Hyatt Regency have staged another one-day walkout Sunday, September 12, bringing to three the number of hotels experiencing strikes during this year's Toronto International Film Festival.

Hotel workers, who also staged a one-day strike at the Westmont-owned Fairmont Royal York last Friday and the Holiday in on Bloor St. on Saturday, have earned the full support of the film sector including ACTRA Toronto, IATSE Local 873 and film celebrities including Martin Sheen. "The film industry relies on the hotel sector, and we're not going to stand by and let these hotel workers be exploited," said Heather Allin, Toronto president of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists.

"As TIFF celebrates the new Bell Lightbox with a street party for Torontonians, and the Hyatt boosts its profits with film guests this week, we continue to be treated like second-class citizens by the Hyatt owners," said Althea Porter-Harvey, a Room Attendant at the Hyatt Regency. "We deserve better than that. We're joining the street party today."

Local 75 spokesperson Cruz-Haicken explained that all of the hotels being targeted for these demonstrations are owned by the same company, which is engaged in contract talks with UNITE HERE.

"We exercised restraint and have provided quality service at Toronto hotels owned by Westmont through the G20, the Queen's visit, Pride Week and Caribana," added Porter-Harvey. "Westmont has had ample time to sit down and negotiate with us as contracts have expired, but they've chosen to ignore us and treat us with disrespect."

Striking workers contend hotel management is trying to lock them into cutbacks and new shift schedules imposed during the recession.

CANADIAN LABOUR TORONTO:

FANTASY MEETS REALITY AT THE TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL:

The Toronto International Film Festival opened on Friday, and delegates were treated to a demonstration of the frustration of the workers employed by the host hotel. The workers of the Hyatt Regency, represented by Unite Here Local 75, staged a one day walkout to protest management intransigence in contract talks. Here's the story from a union press release.

OLOLOLOLOL
Hotel workers forced to take one-day strike at Hyatt Regency Toronto
Film industry unions support workers striking against TIFF hotel headquarters


TORONTO--Hotel workers at the Hyatt Regency, home of this year's Toronto International Film Festival, have begun a one-day walkout after they bargained past a midnight deadline without reaching a new agreement.

Picketing is to begin at 7:30 a.m. this morning. A massive rally of hotel workers and others from across the city will take place at 5:30 p.m. today in front of the hotel. Unions from the film sector will rally in support of the hotel workers, saying that good hotel jobs, like good film jobs, are vital for the economic health of the city.

"We will be holding one day of action on Friday and will be back to work on Saturday," explained Althea Porter-Harvey, a Hyatt employee and member of UNITE HERE Local 75 which represents the workers. "We are still hopeful we can reach an agreement."

"While we're struggling to make hotel jobs good jobs, these wealthy owners keep buying and selling properties and treating us as if we still in a recession," Porter-Harvey continued. "The Mangalji and Pritzker families, who own and operate these hotels, need to have more regard for hotel workers. All we are asking is that they not lock in the recession for their workers, because the recession is over in the hotel sector."

The Hyatt, the host hotel for the Toronto International Film Festival opening next Thursday, is owned by the little-known Mangalji family and operated by the Pritzker family, which cashed out over $900 million in their sale of Hyatt shares in late 2009.

"Our industry spends a lot of money on hotels and it's frankly shocking to discover that the people who work so hard to make up the rooms we're paying for are being treated so poorly," said Heather Allin, President of ACTRA Toronto. "If Toronto's hotel workers cannot resolve relations with Hyatt to ensure workers are treated with respect, then my union will support Hyatt workers in this city and across the continent. They deserve to make a decent living from the work they do. Hyatt will face a determined boycott if they aren't fair to the hard working people who make their hotels possible."

The hotel workers have sent a public statement to TIFF Festival chief Piers Handling stating that despite the fact most contracts expired on 1/31/2010,

We exercised restraint, had a limited strike at the Novotel Toronto Centre, and did not strike during the G20. We have continued to work through Caribana and Pride and the busy summer tourist season. All the while we have been bargaining with some of the biggest hotel chains in an attempt to get a decent new contract. To no avail. At not a single hotel has management attempted to get a decent new contract… We are aware that [the Hyatt] is a central hotel to the Toronto International Film Festival. There is a legal strike/lockout deadline of September 3, 2010. It is also a hotel chain with examples of shameful treatment of its workers both here and around North America.

In both Canada and the U.S., the hotel industry is rebounding faster and stronger than expected but hotel workers are not sharing in that improved fortune. During the first quarter of 2010, occupancy and average daily hotel rates increased nationwide, leading to a 2.77% increase in RevPAR, or Revenue per Available Room, nationwide, according to Smith Travel Research and Hospitality Valuation Services data.

Local 75 represents over 7,000 hotel, hospitality and gaming workers in the Greater Toronto Area. For more information, please visit www.uniteherelocal75.org .

CANADIAN LABOUR VANCOUVER:

HYATT BLOCKADE IN VANCOUVER:

Last Thursday hotel workers in Vancouver BC protested in front of the Hyatt Regency Hotel as part of a 15 city continental protest against the chain's anti-worker policies. In a real direct action as opposed to a theatrical riot the workers blocked access to the hotel during the protest. These workers are represented by Unite Here. Here's a report from the BC newspaper 'The Province'.

CLCLCLCLCL
Hundreds block downtown Vancouver corridor to protest Hyatt's treatment of workers
More than 600 hotel workers protested outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Vancouver during the evening rush hour Thursday as part of demonstrations in 15 North American cities against the way the global hotel giant treats its workers.

“We want to focus on the Hyatt because we feel like it serves as the starkest example of a global hotel company that managed to do well during the recession while they were cutting hours for workers, reducing shifts, leading to increased work loads for workers who are on staff,” said Michelle Travis of Unite Here Local 40, which represents about 8,000 hotel workers in B.C.

Protesting their treatment by the corporate hotel giant, workers blocked Burrard Street between West Georgia and Dunsmuir at the height of the demonstration as police redirected traffic.

Similar protests by thousands of hotel workers were held in Toronto and major U.S. cities such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

Unite Here, formerly known as the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, is in contract negotiations for a new contract for about 1,600 hotel workers in Vancouver at the Hyatt, Four Seasons, Westin Bayshore and Renaissance hotels.

Understaffing and workloads have emerged as the main issues in bargaining for a new contract that expired on June 30.

jkeating@theprovince.com


Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/entertainment/Hundreds+block+downtown+Vancouver+corridor+protest+Hyatt+treatment+workers/3311375/story.html#ixzz0uial2Mye

CANADIAN LABOUR - TORONTO:

LIEING THROUGH GREEN TEETH:

Here's an item after my own heart touching as it does on one of my pet peeves ie the ability of both people and business to use rhetoric hypocritically in the service of quite different purposes. Right at the bottom of this cesspool, along with those who imagine that they are "saving the Earth" by anti-litter campaigns (so stuff can rot in the dump instead of on the street), are the various hotel chains that use "green cons" to reduce their services to guests. And not so incidentally reduce the number and income of their employees. Here's an item from Toronto, originally from the Unite Here Local 75 and brought to Molly's attention via the online progressive news service Straight Goods.

CLCLCLCLCLCLCL
Hotel workers blow whistle

Sheraton, Delta hotels told to stop "fake green" programs foisted on guests.
from UNITE HERE

Guests at Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, the Delta Chelsea and Delta East hotels are unwittingly participating in purported "green" programs that deliver negligible environmental benefits and are instead aimed at significantly reducing the number of room attendants employed at the hotels each day.

Hotel workers, along with unions who do business with the hotels, have called for an end to the Sheraton's "Make a Green Choice" program and the Delta's "Green Star" programs.

"After five days of no housekeeping, it takes us three times as long to clean the room."



"This is one of the most deceptive programs ever foisted on hotel guests who want to make a difference," said Ontario Federation of Labour President Sid Ryan.

While turning down daily towel and linen service has long been offered as a way to save energy, the Sheraton and Delta programs offer guests the option of declining housekeeping services to "conserve natural resources" in return for a $5 daily voucher.

Between 70 to 100 guests have hung the notices out each night at the Sheraton, for example, allowing the Sheraton to economize on housekeeping staff. If more room attendants are required, they are called early the next morning to come in for a shift.

"After five days of no housekeeping, it takes us three times as long to clean the room. We use almost as much cleaning fluids as we'd use on a daily basis because the rooms are so dirty," said Brigida Ruiz, who works as a room attendant at the Sheraton Hotel.

"Most guests have told me they didn't really read the card and thought they were doing something good. Then they've asked for housekeeping services, not realizing that they've declined them."

UNITE HERE, the union representing hotel workers, estimates that between 30 to 40 eight-hour shifts are being lost by room attendants every week at the Sheraton because of the program. When the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF) refused the program at its recent convention at the Sheraton, the hotel had to call in about 20 more room attendants.

The Ontario Public Services Employees Union (OPSEU) and United Steelworkers have also asked the hotel to remove the 'green choice' cards from members' rooms at their conferences. UNITE HERE estimates that union conventions and conferences make up about 40 percent of the Sheraton Centre's business.

"Each day, room attendants with lower seniority wait to see if they are called. They can't plan their life or take another job because they never know if they are going to be called into work," added Ruiz.

Winnie Ng, co-chair of the Good Green Jobs for All Coalition, added that green programs are meant to create good green jobs on an equitable basis for all workers, not lead to precarious work. "Not only is this program deceiving guests, it is eroding good jobs for hotel workers, many of whom are immigrants, women and workers of colour who are trying to support their families."

Local 75 represents over 7000 hotel, hospitality and gaming workers in the Greater Toronto Area. For more information, please visit our website at the link below.


References
The website of Local 75

AMERICAN LABOUR-CALIIFONIA:

HUNGER STRIKE AGAINST DISNEY:

You know I've always held a visceral dislike of "The Mouse". The reasons are many and various, but one of the main ones is an understanding of how Disney has always exploited the workers who maintain its paper-mache fantasy worlds. Down Los Angeles way some workers are fighting back publicly against Disney management's attempts to squeeze the last drop of blood out of their labour. Their weapon- a public hunger strike which they hope will shame the Corp into some sort of decency. the idea that Disney management can feel shame may be a forlorn hope, but they may fear the adverse publicity. Here's the story from the AFL-CIO Blog.

)))))))))))))))))))))))
Disneyland Hotel Workers Fast For Safer Work:
by James Parks, Feb 9, 2010
Disneyland hotel workers began a water-only fast Tuesday to protest what they describe as life-threatening safety issues on the job. The more than 2,000 bellmen, dishwashers, room attendants, and cooks, members of Unite Here! Local 11, have been working without a contract since February 2008. They say new work requirements at three resort hotels and the villas at the Grand Californian Hotel have led to serious health problems among workers, including heart attack, stroke and musculoskeletal injuries.

Disney management also is demanding to make drastic cuts in workers’ health insurance.
During the fast, eight Disneyland hotel workers, two Los Angeles International Airport food service employees–who also are members of the local–and one adult son of a Disneyland hotel worker will refrain from eating and consume only water. Fast participants will remain, 24-hours a day, in front of the Grand Californian Hotel, sleeping in tents on the sidewalk and surrounded by a large shrine to injured workers.

Part of the shrine will pay tribute to Grand Californian housekeeper Rosario Casas, who is out of work on disability after suffering a heart attack on the job in October. Casas said her doctor said the heart attack was due to stress.

Narciso Guevara, a houseman at the Grand Californian Hotel, who plans to fast, said:
"We’re fighting for our health. We need better, safer conditions on the job, healthcare we can afford, and even more importantly, we need the company to respect us."

Maria Navarro, a housekeeper at the Grand Californian, who was injured at work just three days after Disney remodeled the hotel, said she is fasting to bring attention to the injuries she and several of her co-workers have suffered.

Since the changes were implemented at the Grand Californian, things have gotten worse. There are many people in my department who are hurt, but work through the pain because they are afraid of losing their jobs. So much pressure creates an unsafe place. We must make it stop.

Throughout the fast, community and religious leaders, unions, musicians, students and residents will call on Disney to address the health and safety issues at the hotels to by participating in daily actions, rallies and concerts.

The fasting workers are blogging about the action at:

http://www.disneyisunfaithful.org/work-shouldnt-hurt

and more information also is available here.

AMERICAN LABOUR:

SIT DOWN IN SAN FRAN:

The following came Molly's way yesterday from the AFL-CIO blog. It says something about the times when even such a stodgy outfit as the AFL-CIO are willing to engage in the creative tactics of a sit in. All that Molly can say is that it is too bad that they didn't hold in the sit-in inside the hotel.

ALALALALALALAL

Hotel Workers, Trumka Arrested at Sit-In for Fair Contract:
by Mike Hall, Jan 6, 2010
More than 100 union members, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and UNITEHERE! President John Wilhelm were arrested at a sit-in demanding justice and a fair contract for San Francisco hotel workers last night. The workers have been without a contract since August.

The sit-in in front of the Hilton San Francisco followed a march by nearly 1,000 members of UNITEHERE! Local 2, other union members and community and political supporters. Says Ingrid Carp, a cook for 29 years at the Hilton:

“We’re determined as ever to win a good contract. It’s wrong for corporations to position themselves to make billions with the coming economic recovery, and expect us to go backward.”

The action is part of a campaign to win fair contracts at several national hotel chains, including Hilton, Hyatt and Starwood. The profitable chains are using the recession as an excuse to demand health care benefit cuts in contract talks with more than 16,000 workers at dozens of hotels in San Francisco, Chicago and other cities.

At the rally before the march, Trumka told crowd:

“A job is a good job because working people fight to make it one. It doesn’t matter if the job is in a coal mine or a hotel, a classroom or a car wash.

“That’s why the struggle of hotel workers here in San Francisco and across our country is so important. If we don’t protect the wages and benefits and health care of hotel workers no job is safe, no worker is safe no family is safe.”

Tomorrow, Trumka will join workers for a rally and picket in front of the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles. Along with the demand for justice for hotel workers, Trumka is in California this week to spotlight the need for job creation. We’ll have more on that later today.

AMERICAN LABOUR:

LABOUR RIGHTS AND H1N1:

It seems now that the concern expressed earlier this year about the H1N1 flu virus was excessive. Still...millions of workers in the USA (and Canada) have no right to stay home when ill. This means that they can become disease carriers to the general public. The next pandemic may not be as mild. Here, from the UNITE HERE Union is an announcement about a video they have produced about the virus and the Disney Company.

VVVVVVVVVVVV
It’s a Small World: Disney and the H1N1 Virus:
by Tula Connell, Dec 17, 2009
For workers at Disney in Anaheim, Calif., getting sick—even with the H1N1 (swine flu) virus—means an awful choice: Stay home and risk being disciplined or go to work and spreading the illness to co-workers and the public.

Millions of hospitality industry workers in this country have no paid sick leave—like the more than 1,500 workers at Disney—and worse, actually could lose their jobs for staying home to get well. UNITEHERE! Local 11, which represents the workers at Disney, created this video, “It’s a Small World: Disney and the H1N1 Virus,” that clearly shows how Disney’s policy endangers workers and the public.

If you have information about cases of H1N1 among visitors or workers at Disney hotels or parks, send an e-mail with the story to disneyh1n1@gmail.com. And check out our resources on H1N1 here.

CANADIAN LABOUR/AMERICAN LABOUR:

THE UNION HOTEL GUIDE:

Planning on getting away from it all for the holidays ? If so this item from the AFL-CIO Blog may be of interest. A guide to which hotels are unionized, a better deal because it's a fairer deal. The original guide comes from the Hotel Workers Rising website, sponsored by the Unite Here union. My only objection...the guide only lists hotels that are organized by this one particular union. Here in Canada (and I suspect the case is the same in the USA) there are a number of hotels that are organized by other union such as The Nova Scotia Union of Public and Private Employees, Local 17, the UFCW and, most prominently the Canadian Autoworkers (CAW). You can find a substantial guide to the many hotels organized by the CAW HERE. Think of this addition to what comes below as Molly's little pre-Christmas gift.

⌂⌂⌂⌂⌂⌂⌂⌂⌂⌂⌂⌂⌂⌂⌂

UNION HOTEL GUIDE:

Union Hotel Guide before you book a room. The user-friendly online directory helps you identify union-staffed hotels across the country.

Just plug in city and state( or province-Molly ), and the site will display a list of hotels in the area that employ UNITEHERE! members and are doing right by their workers. You also can add the name of a hotel chain as part of the search. Click here for the Union Hotel Guide.

A link on the site also enables you to quickly see which hotels are on the union’s boycott list and where workers are on strike.

UNITEHERE! is working across the country to bring a better life to hotel workers who often are underpaid and who work long, hard hours to make our stay comfortable and safe. For example, the union is urging customers to boycott three hotels in the San Francisco area, including the Westin St. Francis, where 650 workers ended a two-day strike on Nov. 21. The Palace and the Grand Hyatt, the sites of previous strikes also are on the boycott list.

Members of UNITEHERE! Local 2 voted by a 92 percent to 8 percent margin to authorize strikes at any of the 31 upscale hotels in San Francisco. Despite earning record profits over the past five years, the hotels are using the recession as an excuse to demand changes in eligibility for the employees’ health care plan that would eliminate coverage or put it out of reach for many workers.

CANADIAN LABOUR:

STANDING WITH DIANE:

The following appeal for solidarity with the St. Catherine's hotel worker "Diane" is from the UNITE Canada union.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

I stand with Diane:‏

I stand with Diane. And if you support the right of workers to freely form a union, you'll stand with her too.

Diane has worked in St. Catharine's Hotel in Ontario for years and has been in good standing. Last summer she decided that the best way to solve some of the problems that she and her co-workers were facing was to form a union. Very soon after her boss found out and fired her.

The labor board ordered that the employer take Diane back pending a hearing but the damage had been done. The union effort was over and the employer began a campaign to intimidate and isolate Diane.

This is what happens when workers do not have the protections they need. In the US these problems would be addressed by passing the Employee Free Choice Act(www.unitehereforchange.org ) and in Canada workers in a number of provinces are looking to pass similar legislation.

If bosses are allowed to get away with firing workers for starting a union, the right to a union becomes meaningless. Stand with us, stand for the right to organize.

To show her your support, please visit: www.IStandWithDiane.ca

Sign our petition and send us your photo. Together we'll show that workers don't stand alone.

In Solidarity,

Bruce Raynor

UNITE HERE

General President

-------------------

Please visit www.IstandwithDiane.ca for more information.

CANADIAN LABOUR:

CANADIAN EQUIPMENT FOR THE CANADIAN GAME:

The following is very seasonal, the hockey season that is. While hockey may be Canada's national sport it seems that the equipment used in the game is less and less so, to the detriment of North American workers. The Unite Here union is asking you to write to Reebok, asking them to quit making long shots with their sources and return to their own zone. Here's the appeal for your solidarity. For puck's sake lend a hand here.

.............................
Ask Reebok to Make the Save!‏:
Hockey is a popular sport in the U.S. and Canada, and Reebok holds the exclusive license for official National Hockey League(NHL) apparel and equipment. But hockey fans may be surprised to learn that many of these products used to be manufactured in North America and are now mostly made overseas.

Since 2002, Reebok or The Hockey Company/Sport Maska (a company that became a Reebok subsidiary in 2004) have shut down five factories in Canada, outsourced work, and eliminated nearly 600 Canadian jobs.

That manufacturing work has been sent to factories in other countries, particularly in China. An analysis of Reebok import shipments into the U.S. from September, 2006 to August, 2008 shows that hockey jerseys, sticks, ice skates and other items are produced in at least 12 countries, with nearly two thirds of the total product coming from factories in China.

Reebok should make a commitment to local manufacturing jobs. Ask Reebok to Make the Save! Send a message to Reebok.

You can take action on this alert via the web at:

http://action.unitehere.org/campaign/reebokusa/85xdniw2a7b5ett6?

Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this.

http://action.unitehere.org/campaign/reebokusa/forward/85xdniw2a7b5ett6?

We encourage you to take action by May 22, 2009

Ask Reebok to Make the Save!

INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA THE WEB:

If you have access to a web browser, you can take action on this alert by going to the following URL:

http://action.unitehere.org/campaign/reebokusa/85xdniw2a7b5ett6?

Your letter will be addressed and sent to:

Mr. Mathew O'Toole

Mr. Michel Benoit

Mr. Yan Martin

----THIS LETTER WILL BE SENT IN YOUR NAME----

Dear [decision maker name automatically inserted here],

I am a fan of hockey, but I am also concerned about the economy and the loss of local manufacturing jobs that have supported our national game. Reebok has closed North American factories and outsourced hundreds of jobs that produced hockey apparel and equipment. Reebok has sent that work to factories overseas, particularly in China.

As a hockey fan, I want Reebok to make a commitment to good paying jobs here at home and to maintain and expand North American production of hockey apparel and equipment. Workers here love hockey and want to contribute to the game. Local production is good for the game, good for workers, and good for the fans. Please make the save!

----END OF LETTER TO BE SENT----

CANADIAN LABOUR-QUÉBEC:

HELP MANAGEMENT SCROOGES SEE THE LIGHT AT ZARA:

Zara Canada is a peddler of high fashion clothes, something that Molly is sadly (?) unfamiliar with. Their treatment of their employees, however, hasn't been fashionable since the days of Dickens and Scrooge. When the workers at Zara joined the union Unite Here to improve their lot in life and defend themselves against high handed behavior management retaliated with even more attacks, many of which may break the Québec labour code. The union has called on consumers to show their solidarity by writing management demanding they stop such actions. Now would be a good time for these Ebenezers to get a bit of the Christmas spirit. Here's the appeal from the union and what you can do to help.

................................

Stop Unfashionable Conduct at Zara:
Zara workers joined UNITE HERE in Fall 2007 in order to improve working conditions at their store. They were tired of their unpredictable schedules, working shortstaffed, bosses' favoritism, and disregard for seniority.

Instead of respecting employees' right to join a union, since Fall 2007, ZARA has engaged in conduct which may have violated the Québec Labour Code, including:
***Firing four employees who supported the union at ZARA's Rockland Mall store in April and May 2008
***Demoting two employees who led a union drive at ZARA's downtown Montreal store in August 2007
***Holding anti-union meetings at three Montreal stores in 2007-2008, in one case telling employees that joining a union is "treason" against the company.
TAKE ACTION TODAY!
Send the following message to David Pastrana, President of Zara Canada:
Tell me more

.............................

Please go to THIS LINK to send the following letter.

............................
Subject:Respect Zara Workers' Right to Join a Union!
Dear [ Decision Maker ],
Zara is known as a progressive company on the cutting edge of fashion, but when it comes to respect for workers? rights, here in Canada Zara seems to be stuck in the 19th century.

As a Zara customer, I support the right of Zara workers to join a union and want to shop at a company that treats its employees with respect. Respect Zara workers' right to join a union and commit to negotiating with them in good faith!