OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas released the following statement today in support of Local 325, Canadian Union of Brewery and General Workers.
National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) President Larry Brown joins CUBGW workers on the picket line this week.
(Photo courtesy NUPGE)
Nobody wants a strike. But when your employer asks you to accept a deal that would turn your good, middle-class job into a bad job, then you have no choice. You’re going on strike.
This is the case now for about 320 Molson Coors workers at the Carlingview Drive brewery in Toronto. Contract negotiations failed when the company wouldn’t budge on the concessions it was demanding from workers. The concessions included a 7 per cent cut in wages, pensions, and benefits. Molson is crying poor because of a dip in sales following the economic decline in Alberta last year.
I don’t get it. Why, when a corporation experiences any dip in profits, are those losses always recouped by milking the workforce? Why are the workers the ones who get punished? Their labour made those profits in the first place.
And paying decent wages won’t bankrupt Molson Coors, especially considering the corporation is raking in huge profits from beer drinkers.
President and CEO Mark Hunter takes home more than six million a year. Six million! Yet Molson Coors is asking workers who take home maybe $50,000 to take a pay cut. That’s not right.
In a showdown like this, I stand with the workers in the Canadian Union of Brewery and General Workers Local 325. They’re not demanding anything radical. All they want to do is protect good jobs, make a decent living, and be able to retire with dignity one day.
In a climate where the middle class is being decimated, we all have to fight back.
That’s why I’m asking all OPSEU members to boycott Molson Coors products for as long as it takes the workers in CUBGW Local 325 to get a fair deal. Help spread the word. Let’s send this company a clear message: the folks on the picket line on Carlingview Drive deserve a fair deal, and Molson Coors can afford to give it to them.
Molson Coors products:
Coors, Coors Light, Coors Banquet, Miller Genuine Draft, Miller Lite, Molson Canadian, Molson Export, Rickard’s Red, Bohemian, Carling, Creemore Springs, Keystone Ice, Keystone Lager, Mad Jack.
Please be sure to read the label before purchasing your beer.