In the aftermath of the Northern Pulp decision there are a lot of racist social media comments directed at the people of Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN). To see racist comments on Facebook is of course not unusual, but this is getting out of hand. If we don’t push back it will continue to get worse.
I went to the rally of Northern Pulp and forestry workers at Province House. It will be a sad day tomorrow no matter what McNeil decides.
Chief Andrea Paul of Pictou Landing First Nation posted a response to the Unifor proposal on her Facebook page. “Today, they are caught in a battle that THEY had years and years to resolve. They had many years of opportunity to do better. They chose not to. Even with the Boat Harbour ACT they still believed they were above that and didn’t begin consultation with the Band until 2017 after we requested it.”
Unifor, with its deep roots in the community, could be a force for a solution of the Northern Pulp conundrum. But will remain ineffective if it aligns itself unconditionally with Paper Excellence, the owners of Northern Pulp.
A little something about that legislated deadline to the Boat Harbour closure and how politicians and unions better not mess with it.
“The fact is this is not about risk, it is about ideology. The credit union has chosen to jump on the dump-DB-pension-plan bandwagon. The action by the employer completely fails to recognize the years and years that employees either took concessions or accepted less in order to maintain a decent pension plan and each time they showed their ability to work with the employer.”
Media release: Failing to make domestic violence leave paid leave allows a major barrier to remain for Nova Scotia women who need to flee violent homes says Unifor.
After more than a year of bargaining the Nova Scotia Health Care Council of Unions is announcing that it will soon hold Nova Scotia’s first ever province-wide Health Care Bargaining Unit strike vote.
The split between Unifor and the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) raises questions about Unifor representation at the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour and the five local Labour Councils in the province. There are many reasons given for this split, and accusations of union raiding and catering to American-based unions are freely exchanged between the two sides. The focus of this story however is the confusion, turmoil and sometimes even anger that the breakup has caused within the Nova Scotia labour movement. And there’s lots of that.
This article by historian Lachlan MacKinnon was originally published on September 18, 2014 on the excellent ActiveHistory.ca site. We re-publish this now three-year old article because the gap between mill workers and Pictou County environmentalists the author identifies if anything has widened in the last three years. “Environmentalists must confront the fact that structural power is also wielded against other marginalized groups, such as industrial workers facing the threat of deindustrialization. In this recognition, we can hope to transcend narrow categories such as worker and environmentalist and achieve a broader-based support for systemic change.”