Striking Crown Metal employees, including from left, Ian Pearson, Tony Russell and David Elines, have been left out in the cold literally and figuratively for 18 months while their employer uses cheaper substitute workers to continue production.
Striking Crown Metal employees, including from left, Ian Pearson, Tony Russell and David Elines, have been left out in the cold literally and figuratively for 18 months while their employer uses cheaper substitute workers to continue production.
On the tail end of a second frigid winter on the picket line, the striking workers of the Crown metals plant in Weston have reason to hope they’ll be back on the job soon.
Late Friday, Ontario Labour Minister Kevin Flynn announced that he was appointing an expert to analyze the key issues behind the lengthy labour dispute, with an eye to finding a solution. It’s the first time since 2007 that the ministry has intervened in a strike in this way.
Experienced mediator-arbitrator Morton Mitchnick will have 14 days to examine the relationship between the parties, investigate the underlying causes of the strike and assess the prospects for settlement.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
“The workers have been off the job for eighteen months, and the government and Ontarians are increasingly concerned. Following his inquiry, the Commissioner will report to me on any remaining issues in dispute and what, if any, steps could then be taken to address them,” Flynn said in a statement.
For the 120 workers who have been picketing in shifts outside the Crown can factory for the past year and a half, the move didn’t come a moment too soon.
“It’s about time,” said Lawrence Hay, lead negotiator for United Steel Workers. “That’s great. We’re happy for the progress but it’s certainly taken them a long time to open their eyes to this.”
The strike began in September 2013, when the plant, which makes cans for more than 100 brands of beer and pop — including Molson, Labatt, Coors, Budweiser, Creemore and Cott — had just been recognized as Crown’s safest and most productive plant in North America. Despite turning a billion-dollar profit, parent company Crown Holdings Inc., based in Philadelphia, refused to unfreeze wages and pensions, Hay said.
After the workers walked out, Hay said the company proposed to eliminate their annual cost-of-living wage increases and hire new workers at salaries as much as 42 per cent lower than existing ones.
Crown Holding’s media spokesperson, Thomas T. Fischer, did not return a request for comment.
While Hay considers Mitchnick little more than a “glorified mediator,” he’s hopeful that the company’s treatment of its workers will convince him strong measures are necessary to compel a solution.
“We’re really hopeful that once they start to peel the onion back and see how Crown has been behaving at the bargaining table … they’ll say, ‘Listen, employer, you can’t come in here and do that.’ ”
As the dispute has worn on, it has gotten little attention from the outside, though Torontonians were briefly reminded of the walkout when a striking Crown worker was the man who discovered the body of young Elijah Marsh, the local boy who died outside in the bitter cold in February. Bringing in binding arbitration might now be the only way out, said Hay, though in the long run, he’d like to see legislation banning replacement workers, which would prevent strikes of this duration from ever happening again.
“They’re a bunch of really good people who are in a really unfair fight right now because the playing field is not level. This government really needs to open its eyes and understand that they need to introduce anti-scab legislation. If they do that, these strikes won’t last 18 months. These strikes won’t last past a month.”
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