Our friends with the Occupy London Ontario Media Team have been doing some great coverage of the lockout at the Catipilliar plant. The corporation is trying to slash the wages (by 50%) and benefits of workers with an offer they know can never be accepted by the workers, and seems to be planning to move the plant to the United States to take advantage of ununionized workers. A major rally is planned for January 21st.
In this video (lockout update, January 9th 2011) Tim Carry from Canadian Auto Workers [CAW] and Nancy Hutchison from Ontario Federation of Labour [OFL] visit the lines. Hutchison said: "its frustrating that this government keeps giving handouts to corporations and in return these corpotations just slam workers one by one by one and shut the doors and lock out workers when they have made them so profitable"
Occupy London Media Team also did videos on how the Unions were told to remove porta-potties that strking workers were using. One of the sticking points in bargaining is that the company no longer wants to pay into the solidarity fund that CAW pays into to support broader social struggles such as the Occupy movement. Occupy London Ontario camped out in solidarity with the striking workers. Although it was -25 outside, Jess from Occupy London said: "We had the tent set up and I took a nap and I woke up and there was a woodstove there, and there was a table with all kinds of soup and cookies".
The Dominion is a monthly paper published by an incipient network of independent journalists in Canada. It aims to provide accurate, critical coverage that is accountable to its readers and the subjects it tackles. Taking its name from Canada's official status as both a colony and a colonial force, the Dominion examines politics, culture and daily life with a view to understanding the exercise of power.