Meanwhile…. Next Door… a little Protest

Turns out the CAW (Canadian Auto Workers Union) are still the feisty, ornery, bunch I remember them to be from my days as a youth riding association member in the NDP.

Irked by plans to and shut down auto plants in Ontario ( just recently after a CBA was signed ) they have staged a

blockade of GM in Oshawa. The truck plant there is to be closed causing the loss of 2600 jobs.

GM reacted predictably filing a court injunction….

GM filed the injunction request Thursday, arguing the protest is keeping 900 people away from work and hampering day-to-day operations

Funny thing protest can actually work.

Now, in this case it only works temporarily as a Judge has ordered the protest to be stopped and the union members and their supporters to vacate the area by Monday.

However the Judge also had this to say….

But in his decision, Ontario Superior Court Judge David Salmers also chastised the auto giant, saying it acted deceitfully in announcing the closure of a truck plant in Oshawa by the end of 2009 just three weeks after reaching a collective bargaining agreement with the CAW

The union replied this way….

“As of 7 a.m. Monday morning, General Motors can have their building back, and not until,” Buckley said Friday after the ruling. “I’m more than satisfied with the judge’s decision.”

Almost as interesting has been the comments attached to the story that reveal Ontario as being not quite as “liberal” as one might think…..

Judge Salmer, since when should a judge allow violations of the law for an additional 8+ hours? Is the Judge in the pocket of the Union?

Toronto Star said the Judge was critical of what GM did to bring this illegal blockading about in the first place.

Is the Judge saying that a corporation shouldn’t consider cutting its losses if it means some union members might have to get another Job?

Only in Canada

I would blame GM if they just shut down every plant and left Canada for the Unions to make the Zenn’s at $5/per hour

Its about time these lazy employees get back to work. I think they should respect that they’re union leader signed a contract with GM was meaningless and that large unions such as this one are a waste of money and time. This is besides the fact that I believe these high school graduates are over payed and should accept their losses and move on. I think most of Canada has heard enough of this

Unions need to grow up and adapt to change or go extinct””””””””””””””””””

To hell with the union and collective agreements!!

These people should live in the real world. If you lose your job, go out and find a new one!! Everybody else does!

Sell your house and all your toys, move west where the real economy is, stop your whining!!

The police should tear down this blockade!!

Fewer sounded like this…..

Good … now show us that the courts treat blue collar and white collar the same and issue an order to honor the contract they signed

However, this comment got several “thumbs up” from other commenters…

Congratulations to the CAW to standing up to GM and conducting a lawful and peaceful demonstration. Shame on GM for it’s “…deceitful business practices …and very dirty hands.”

To all you ignorant anti-union posters you can now go rub salt. The CAW did exactly what they set out to do, one step at a time.

GM should pay dearly for breaching a contract

On the one hand it is pleasing to see workers agitating for their rights something that seems to happen so rarely these days. When was the last time a plant or business got shut down and blockaded here? Even more fun to see a Judge poke a stick at a large corporation. Naturally if that happened here FOX news would go ballistic and rant about activist Judges as if their job is really just to rubber stamp corporate agendas, not have actual independent thought.

And clearly there are a significant number of Canadians who don’t recognize that workers do in fact have rights and can protest. One common strain of Neo-con thought is that anybody who speaks up is a radical and somehow the idea of being an “activist” has been demonized to the point that all anybody in mainstream America or Canada perhaps has to do is mutter the word and disgust is invoked.

If anybody criticizes you for engaging in the democratic process be flattered. It means they fear you. It means their fantasies about going back to feudal times have been punctured. Even that guy walking down the street muttering to himself and carrying a sign

looking lonely as he cries out for peace is doing something for democracy. It doesn’t actually take that much effort. Just some thick skin.