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“We believe it may establish a very important class-action precedent [in Canada],” said Douglas Elliott, a partner with Roy Elliott Kim O'Connor LLP, who is representing the CIBC employees along with Louis Sokolov of Sack Goldblatt Mitchell LLP.

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Last evening CTV, had a great interview with Ms Wasylycia-Leis regarding this. She noted it was a CIBC taking advantage of WOMEN, by their non-payment of due overtime. While, the CEO makes 6 million a year, she noted.

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Mr. Sokolov said the purpose of the law "is to prevent employers from using subtle, or not so subtle, pressure on their employees to volunteer their time in hopes of advancement … or fear of reprisal.

"We believe that unpaid overtime is widespread in many industries in this country … including financial services," Mr. Sokolov said.

Ms. Fresco said she is currently required to work an average of two to five hours a week in unpaid overtime. When she was a personal banker, she sometimes worked up to 15 hours in unpaid overtime a week, she added.

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This is very interesting, since the suit so far seems to be getting at the actual problem of boss coercion of workers, especially in non-union workplaces, like the banks.

These environments force workers to sacrifice their rights in the hope of gaining some discretionary favour from the boss.

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
MP Wasylycia-Leis was elected in a riding where the big banks have seen fit to decimate the numbers of branches available - probably even more than in other ridings. The MP is just doing her job.

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Not sure, what your point in mentioning this is?

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remind: Not sure, what your point in mentioning this is?

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
Just FYI. I'm not criticizing MP W-Leis. The banks have been replaced by pawn shops, payday loan companies, and other businesses that specialize in robbing poor people. It's been a news item in Winnipeg more than once.

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Originally posted by unionist:
It's shocking that workers in such a sector should be so intimidated that they don't insist on the minimum standards provided by Part III of the Canada Labour Code.

I'm happy to see them fighting back. But if they put the same energy into getting unionized (now that they are prepared to counter all the intimidation), they won't need to take on battles like this one issue at a time.

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There's a lot of reasons people don't get unionized. I think often they're (justifiably) afraid it will just lead to a shutdown of the location. One of my friends lost a management position and was eventually fired for trying to unionize a famous players. In this case, they're probably past that fear. However, it may just be a minority of the workers who are launching this lawsuit, whereas if they wanted a union they would need at least half the employees to agree to a union.

And really unionist, you must know most or many workers don't know their rights. It might be less true for professional bank tellers, but in my observation of the service sector the only right people know about is minimum wage. One time, when I was fired after two weeks from this bakery which was paying me in cash without a payslip, I asked for my 4%. They told me the law says you don't get 4% when you get paid in cash. So I repeated that to the commission of labour. That was the first complaint against that business, even though I witnessed a revolving door of hirings and firings and lots of labour code floutings.

And I'm sure someone in the field like you could probably recall 20 or 30 such stories.

[ 06 June 2007: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

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Originally posted by huberman:
New Socialist this week you can find an article on how growing unions like the (U.S.) SEIU in Canada are treating their workers as bad, or much worse than Wal-Mart or CIBC.

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Ummm, your link leads no where to support your contention, and the page it links to appears to be a 2004 info page and makes no mention of any type of headline such as you suggest.

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There's a lot of reasons people don't get unionized. I think often they're (justifiably) afraid it will just lead to a shutdown of the location. One of my friends lost a management position and was eventually fired for trying to unionize a famous players. In this case, they're probably past that fear.

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This is exactly the main reason why so many workers decline to join a union. As a union organizer in the past, this is the number one fear working people have: if they organize, the bosses will order their workplace shut down.

This is the totalitarian nature of any form of corporate capitalism (private or state). This is why economic democratization measures (which are the basis of any form of real socialism) are so desperately needed.

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New Socialist this week you can find an article on how growing unions like the (U.S.) SEIU in Canada are treating their workers as bad, or much worse than Wal-Mart or CIBC.

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I can't find the article in question here. The link goes back to a 2004 edition of the mag, and I can't access it on its regular web site (if you have subscription and can get it, could you either post it here or send me a copy directly?).

Of hand, from my own knowledge of the labour movement, I find this claim to be, to say the least, outrageous.

The US-based SEIU may leave somewhat to be desired, but to say it treats "its workers" (whatever that means: members? employees of the union?) worse than Wal-Mart goes beyond the grasp of reality--considering the Wal-Mart bosses have boasted that they pay the lowest wages of any major retail chain in the US.

They have also been nailed in several states for forcing employees to work overtime, often without pay, firing women who get pregnant, etc.

In the latest issue - Spring 2007 Issue No. 60 - of the New Socialist (the article is not online - thought you might be familiar with the mag. and buy or read it from time to time) the article is entitled "Business Unionism From the Inside: The contradictions facing young radicals in union staff jobs", by Jeff R. Webber interviewing Katherine G.

Here are some quotes from the article:

"...it's a tactic to get young progressives to work really long hours under stressful conditions. It's presented as revolutionary, but that couldn't be further from the truth." (p. 16)

"There was so much fear bred into the union staffers - fear about getting involved in the staff union, of losing your job, of..." (p. 16)

"I've heard so many stories about people having much worse experiences as organizers... I was hired at a time when SEIU were embracing the US model of aggressively organizing new workers." (p. 16)

It goes on to talk about recruiting university grads "and then working them into the ground for six months to two years."

Check out/buy a copy at your local independent bookshop or order from them directly.

http://www.newsocialist.org/magazine.html

[ 07 June 2007: Message edited by: huberman ]

Definitely no U.S. unions should be involved - see what they did in the recent CN debacle, read about SEIU, read Jim Stanford's take on U.S. union influence in Canada, and see the miserable failure that they are in the U.S.

If any alliances are to be had with foreign unions I say we link with successful examples, specifically financial sector unions in Europe, the U.K. and Australia. I think the best bet is to learn from the Scandinavian countries/models, and send all the U.S. unions home - we need many more Bob Whites in this country, and more international links with non-American unions.