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Health care right to strike (Oct 18, 2007)
Parent’s disappointment is disingenuous So poor, put-upon Labour Minister Mark Parent is “disappointed” in Nova Scotia’s health care union leaders for refusing to meet with him face-to-face,...
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Weep not for ‘unrepresented’ business interests
So here’s my question. Who speaks for workers in the 82 per cent of businesses in Nova Scotia whose employees are not represented by a union? I ask this in light of the recent foofarah over Bill 100,...
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First contract arbitration: tilting the balance or righting the balance?
So Nova Scotia’s largest non-union employers are eager to preserve an unfettered collective bargaining process. They are, they claim, deeply concerned about “a third party deciding what will be the...
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First-contract arbitration: the sky is(n’t) falling
Eric Durnford says if working conditions in Nova Scotia now were the same as in 1984, he too would support first-contract arbitration. Durnford, a prominent labour lawyer who represents employers, was...
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Metro Transit negotiations require talking… and leadership
Whatever else one can say about the rights-wrongs of the current Metro Transit strike, it is clear city negotiators were never interested in negotiating with its 760 bus drivers, ferry operators and...
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With friends like Jamie Baillie, bus driver don’t need enemies
So let me see if I have this right. When workers are at their most vulnerable—when, for example, they’ve decided to join a union and are attempting to negotiate a first contract with a more powerful,...
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The price of judicial independence… and fairness
With 760 bus drivers walking picket lines, 130 brewery workers on the edge of lockout, 870 professors voting to strike and 3,800 health care workers heading for conciliation, it’s no surprise news...
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Howling at the Moon
Why did Nova Scotia business wail wolf over first contract legislation? On Dec. 14, 2011, Sobeys announced it was swallowing whole every one of Shell Canada’s 250 service stations east of Ontario. No...
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Jamie Baillie offside… as usual
Forget the Byzantine balls-up the attempt to unionize Canada’s junior hockey players became—league-hired private investigators snooping on union staff, falsely (maybe) intimating one was a felon;...
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Paramedics can’t strike, but that doesn’t cure what ails a sick system
Now that the government has legislatively punted the possibility of a paramedics strike into the hands of a pick-one arbitrator — who will have to choose between dueling union and management last-best...
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If home support workers are so essential, shouldn’t we pay them better?
Whose services are really “essential”? And what does that mean? On Friday, the McNeil government recalled the legislature to designate most home support workers — including the 400 Northwood employees...
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How much does Chris Huskilson’s secretary make… and other Emera compensation...
Forget for the moment whether last week’s Emera executive bonuses come out of your right pocket or your left. And don’t probe too deeply into whether the supposed wall between the cash shoveled into...
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Should our right to adequate care disappear with nurses’ right to strike?
Let me see if I understand this. Capital District nurses have the legal right to strike. In February, they voted 90 per cent in favour of striking to back contract demands. But if they actually walk...
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Nursing shortage? why is the government making it worse?
So… Faced with a looming shortage of “several thousand” nurses over the next decade as our population both ages and also shrinks (read the Ivany Report; look around you), our new Liberal government...
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Weep not for 'unrepresented' business interests
So here’s my question. Who speaks for workers in the 82 per cent of businesses in Nova Scotia whose employees are not represented by a union? I ask this in light of the recent foofarah over Bill 100,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
First contract arbitration: tilting the balance or righting the balance?
So Nova Scotia’s largest non-union employers are eager to preserve an unfettered collective bargaining process. They are, they claim, deeply concerned about “a third party deciding what will be the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
First-contract arbitration: the sky is(n't) falling
Eric Durnford says if working conditions in Nova Scotia now were the same as in 1984, he too would support first-contract arbitration. Durnford, a prominent labour lawyer who represents employers, was...
View ArticleNursing shortage? Why is the government making it worse?
So… Faced with a looming shortage of “several thousand” nurses over the next decade as our population both ages and also shrinks (read the Ivany Report; look around you), our new Liberal government...
View ArticleState of the union
“SOMEONE TO SEE YOU.” Mike Hachey didn’t have time. Not today. He was in the process of sorting through paperwork dregs from last week’s Atlantic Lottery commercial shoot, planning a Canada Games event...
View ArticleNorthern Pulp, the Sobeys and the lessons unlearned
Nova Scotia is a small, interconnected, even inbred political, economic and social ecosystem. So it was intriguing last month to hear former Empire CEO Paul Sobey publicly rail against the dense “haze...
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