Mill workers vote overwhelmingly to unionize
By: Matt Prokopchuk, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Source: NWOnewswatch.com
Nearly 150 employees at the Weyerhaeuser TimberStrand Plant in Kenora have voted to join the United Steelworkers union.
In a media release issued Friday, the union said it has added 147 workers, who voted 97 per cent in favour of joining the Steelworkers. Prior to the vote, those workers at the Kenora facility weren’t unionized, Kevon Stewart, the Steelworkers’ Ontario and Atlantic Canada director, told Newswatch.
“We ended up getting a call from an interested member, then we had our organizing team basically make the contact,” Stewart said. “They went out there, had several meetings, and basically just talked to the individuals to see what their concerns were, what they needed from us and what they were looking for.”
Improving working conditions and health and safety were two areas Stewart said workers came to the union with, adding that things like pensions, benefits and wages “are always the paramount bread-and-butter issues that we want to make sure … that’s secured for them.”
The whole process took about a month and a half, he added.
Weyerhaeuser confirmed that the production employees at its Kenora facility joined the Steelworkers, while the maintenance employees there are now represented by the Canadian Union of Skilled Workers.
“Weyerhaeuser has a long history of working with labour unions and respects the choices made by our employees,” Mary Catherine McAleer, a public affairs manager with the company, said in an email to Newswatch.
“We are committed to bargaining in good faith with the USW and the CUSW to reach new collective agreements in the near future.”
The Kenora facility has been operating since 2002 making engineered laminated strand lumber, according to the company.
Stewart said he feels this organizing drive was “symbolic of the time.”
“It’s symbolic of the uncertainties that workers are facing today,” he said. “When you see a number of this magnitude, what that’s telling us is that they wanted a unit, they wanted somebody to come in and represent them.”
“At the end of the day, they understand that solidarity from the union movement, what we stand for,” Stewart added. “We talk about uncertain times right now, and we can’t guarantee protection, but at least we could advocate on workers’ behalf any given opportunity we get.”
(File photo)
