Day 192 - 27 Nov 95 - Page 24
1 A. No, nothing like that. "But what I do not want you to
2 do is talk about it around the workplace"; and I would
3 say, "What I am doing, with the help of others, is, we are
4 trying to organise a union in here to ensure dignity and
5 respect for the employees, as well as job security." Then
6 I would tell them, you know, "You may lose your job over
7 this. It is illegal for you to lose your job for joining a
8 union in Canada, but management may lash out and do this."
9
10 I also talked to them about, you know, "If Cam comes up to
11 you and asks you, 'Are you joining this union', you say
12 whatever you say, but if I were you I would say 'yes',
13 because then if he fires you it will look, you know, he has
14 fired you for union involvement basically." Right?
15 I would say, "If Cam does approach you privately, grab
16 another person for a witness, you know, so that you have
17 support that you can establish that this really went on."
18
19 Then I tell them, "If you do not sign the card and you may
20 be fired, the union will still fight for you, but we will
21 have a harder time getting your job back, proving that you
22 were fired because of union involvement." OK?
23
24 I told them that McDonald's may close the store down --
25 because, in Ontario, under Bill 40, I believe, in your
26 application for certification you have to name boundaries
27 of where you are organising, and if they shut down then
28 they cannot reopen the store without starting from where
29 they left off in a union; so they have to go out of the
30 county borders or whatever and open a McDonald's there
31 without a union.
32
33 Q. This closing down of stores to try to beat union drives, is
34 that something you had heard about that had happened
35 elsewhere, or something?
36 A. Not that I heard about it in that exact situation, but
37 it is common -- it is a tactic management uses to defeat
38 the union.
39
40 Q. What did people -- what were the kind of responses that you
41 were getting off people?
42 A. Some people, they would not understand what the word
43 "union" meant, and so you would have to explain to them,
44 well, it is a combined effort of employees joining together
45 to negotiate their wants and needs into a contract; it
46 gives them the right to negotiate as a group with their
47 employer, because there is strengths in numbers; and you
48 are represented by a person from the union to help you
49 negotiate this.
50
51 Some people were very grateful that this was happening, and
52 they would sign right away. Others did not want to have
53 anything to do with it, which was fine. Usually, as we
54 signed people up, people would say, "Well, yes, this
55 happened to me. This situation happened to me, and this is
56 why I want it. Will it prevent management from harassing
57 me? What else can I get out of it?" You could say, "Well,
58 you know, I mean, obviously you can negotiate your wages,
59 your benefits, this type of thing."
60
