Cohost Union News

(h/t to @mikejwitz who submitted this)

VFX work has been seeing a moderate wave of unionization in the US, and it seems this is also happening in Canada now!

Earlier this week DNEG Montreal unionized with IATSE Canada, becoming the second (and largest) of DNEG's locations to form a union and—I believe—only the second vendor-side VFX shop in Canada to unionize. DNEG's Vancouver location unionized late last year and was the first to do so; and their third location in Toronto is currently pending union certification. It's nice to see unionization gain traction in this space in both countries.

After over a decade, workers at the Toronto Transit Commission once again have a right to strike—effective immediately. In 2011, Premier Dalton McGuinty (a Liberal, it should be noted) signed a law banning workers at the TTC from strike action following a request by the Toronto City Council and Mayor Rob Ford. That law, the Toronto Transit Commission Labour Disputes Resolution Act, 2011, was justified on the grounds the TTC was an essential service; it was estimated by his government that "TTC work stoppages cost the economy $50 million a day" when they occur, thus justifying the action. Strikes were replaced with "binding arbitration by a neutral third party" when contract disputes occurred.

Today, that law has been overturned with immediate effect. After repeated union efforts to overturn the law, an Ontario Superior Court judge has ruled it to be in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Efforts to delay the ruling have been rejected, despite the arguments of the province.

After the federal government of Canada failed to meet their demands yesterday evening, workers of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) began a general strike at 12:01am ET today. The 155,000 workers are spread across two major groups: approximately 35,000 Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) workers, and 120,000 workers throughout a variety of Canadian federal agencies and departments that range from the RCMP to the Canadian Coast Guard to Health Canada. At least 23 agencies will see parts of their staff involved in the strike and have their service impacted accordingly. Picket lines will be active at at least 250 locations around the country.

While we don't have specific numbers on the strike votes–which have been ongoing for approximately one and a half months–or the overall mandate, PSAC says that an "overwhelming majority" of workers were in favor of doing so. According to PSAC president Chris Aylward, most members of the union are struggling with cost of living and make anywhere between make between C$40,000 and C$65,000 a year (which converts out to a range of $29,862 to $48,526 USD, as a crude point of comparison). Pay is, accordingly, a very big bargaining point between the federal government and PSAC's workers.

Other interesting points of negotiation have been raised however, and those are worth lingering on too. CBC reported previously that work-from-home provisions have also been a serious sticking point for the union, and the union would like to see shift premiums adjusted to account for inflation. These are, in short, additional pay added to hours worked past 4 p.m. and before 8 a.m. on weekdays and any hours on weekends–the current addition is C$2.50 an hour, which has not been adjusted since 2002 and has been eroded by inflation in that time.¹ The union has also apparently put forward two proposals relating to Indigenous peoples: one would allow self-IDed Indigenous people up to five days of paid leave to engage in traditional practices; another would provide a $1,500 annual bonus to federal workers who speak an Indigenous language at work. A complete set of proposals can be found here.

Presumably, a quick attempt to resolve the strike is oncoming due to the number of strikers and level of disruption this is certain to cause; however, as of last night the federal government had no statement on the matter. We'll see.

1. To the tune of about C$1, as I understand. C$2.50 in 2002 is something like C$3.60 today.