27 March, 2014After seven months of hardship striking workers at Crown operation in Toronto are determined by declining unfair offer made by the company.
On 24 March 117 members of Local 9176 of USW, affiliated to IndustriALL Global Union, voted against and only one for the offer made by the Crown Holdings Inc, one of the biggest metal container companies in the world producing cans for beverage and food products in 149 countries. According to the Ontario legislation, striking workers were obliged to vote on the contract offer made by Crown.
During negotiations for a new collective agreement in October 2013 the company arrogantly demanded to impose unacceptable conditions to the workers at its plant in Ontario. The workers had nothing to do rather than to go on strike against the proposed deterioration of their conditions.
The company so far rejects the possibility for a fair solution of the conflict, at the same time tried and appealed to the local legislation with the idea to force workers to agree to even worse than originally proposed conditions through a vote on 24 March.
The company behavior is no different in other parts of the world. Only recently the Turkish subsidiary of Crown Holdings, Crown Bevcan, dismissed four trade union leaders with false and groundless allegations while the real reason was the fact that they had led union organizing at the company plant located in Izmit, Turkey.
Kemal Özkan, IndustriALL Assistant General Secretary commented, “IndustriALL salutes the courage and solidarity of Crown workers, those who years after years generated profits for this company deserve a fair treatment. Our congratulations in this victory to Crown workers, together we can’t be defeated.”