Thursday, June 01, 2006

Right to Earn a Living

The National Citizens Coalition is doing what it can to offset union boss propaganda that’s being spewed at striking employees up in the Northwest Territories.

Public Service Alliance of Canada officials are threatening employees of Ekati mines (300 kilometers north of Yellowknife) with fines if they cross picket lines.

That’s quite a threat; except for one thing: Canadian law covering Ekati employees does not allow the union to use Canada’s courts to enforce the collection of its fines.

In other words, PSAC is using misinformation and scare tactics to stop employees from working during the strike.

What’s worse, PSAC knows its threat is legally meaningless.

A past PSAC official wrote a memo stating: “PSAC has a legal opinion that clearly and without ambiguity concludes that we have no legal ability to enforce the collection of fines.”

To help set the record straight and to help employees get the real facts, the NCC ran a full page newspaper ad in the Yellowknifer newspaper under the headline, “Here’s what PSAC Union Bosses Don’t Want Ekati Employees to Know”

You can read it here.

The bottom line is that PSAC has a right to call a strike, but employees should also have the right to work during a strike without threats or intimidation.

That’s how free and democratic societies are supposed to work.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

PSAC is trying to fight the strike battle in the media. They called a strike when the company was in the process of shutting down equipment because they had moved most of the overburden off of a large supply of Kimberlite. They were also going to have to reduce operations because they only got 85% of their fuel in on the winter ice road.
Stategically it was a very poor move, now they are using the standard government union tricks of trying to negotiate in the media.
I don't mind unions, they are part of the checks and balances against too much corporate power, they certainly do have their share of faults at times.
Psac has screwed this situation up royally and it's going to cause a great deal of hard feelings for a lot of people.