3 November, 2008
Last week’s Eighth National Convention of the Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada saw the announced a national boycott of Petro-Canada products. That announcement was made by Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, on 28 October in Montréal.
The boycott will target all of the company’s petrol-filling stations and retail products. It comes 21 days before Petro-Canada’s one-year lockout of 260 oil refinery workers, proud union members of CEP Local 175 of Montréal.
In collective negotiations leading up to the 17 November 2007 lockout, Local 175 rejected inferior company proposals that undercut the union’s National Energy and Chemical Bargaining Programme for 2007-2008. Petro-Canada’s sub-par proposals fell even short of the negotiated and agreed to provisions that other CEP branch unions ratified with the company.
To date, a Quebec-wide boycott of the company has diminished company sales by 20% in that province. A more pronounced national boycott will have a deeper impact. Local 175 members have remained steadfast toward achieving the national pattern collective agreement. Again in September, they voted by 96.5% against Petro-Canada’s inferior offer.
CEP President Dave Coles at Petro-Canada Picket line, 28 October
The 260 trade unionists have been financially supported by the CEP’s strike fund, plus supplemental funds generated from energy and other trade unions across Canada. (Messages of support can be directed [email protected].)
"Canadians should not support any company that has the gall to wrap itself in our flag, use our maple leaf as part of its logo while it breaks the law by using scab labour,” Georgetti said at the congress.
The CEP marked the full boycott by temporarily adjourning the congress and transported the 1,200 delegates and guests to picket lines at Point-aux-Trembles, an industrial and residential area of Montréal.
There, CEP President Dave Coles said the locked-out workers’ proven resolve has been an inspiration to all inside the union, and the 150,000-member CEP would ensure that their struggle for the Canadian pattern would be realised.
Locked-Out CEP Local 175 Members
The 300 locals at the congress re-elected Coles for a second two-year term, and Gaétan Ménard was also re-elected as Secretary – Treasurer. After an amendment was submitted on a resolution calling for re-establishing Canadian public ownership over the oil and gas sectors, the resolution was adopted. The union seeks to maintain Canadian jobs in the energy sectors, as well as create new jobs through eco-friendly and sustainable means.
The union also adopted a set of policies in a resolution that addresses the pulp, paper, and wood crisis in Canada, a sector that has seen massive job losses, with 20% of it not closed down in Canada.
“There are critical problems with our economic system that need to be addressed,” said Coles. “Privatisation, de-regulation and the ‘let-the-markets’ rule premise that our capitalist system was built on is proving to be a giant hoax.”
The CEP also held an International Solidarity Night on 27 October, which included ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, and Finnish Paperiliitto President Jouko Ahonen and General Secretary Petri Vanhala, as well as others. Warda congratulated the CEP on the meaningful work that its Humanity Fund is doing globally, particularly its joint HIV/AIDS projects with the ICEM in Africa.
The CEP also bestowed a Peace and International Solidarity Award to the US International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), an ICEM affiliate. The award honoured ILWU for its one-day strike on 1 May 2008 at American west coast ports and ports in British Colombia, Canada. The day-long work stoppage was in protest to the US-led occupation of Iraq. ILWU Secretary-Treasurer William Adams accepted the award on behalf of the union.