The UFCW Canada Eastern Provinces Council (EPC) reports two new organizing wins in Atlantic Canada. The EPC recently expanded to include membership in Newfoundland & Labrador as well as the Maritime provinces where it was already established.

Casual workers at the Cape Breton Island Housing Authority are now members of UFCW Canada Local 864. About 12 casual workers (workers who are not full-time but are called in regularly to perform various tasks) join two dozen of their already unionized full-time counterparts in the Authority’s operations in subsidized housing in the Port Hawkesbury to Inverness region. Members of the bargaining unit include office personnel as well as groundskeepers and building maintenance workers. Local 864 is headquartered in Bedford, N.S., with members in all three Maritime provinces.
 

Meanwhile, in Newfoundland & Labrador, UFCW Canada Local 1252 is breaking new ground with the organizing of about a half-dozen graveyard workers in Corner Brook. They work at the Mount Patricia Cemetery, the city’s largest burial ground. Local 1252 is based in St. John’s, but has a strong presence on the island’s western coast as well, including about 65 members working at the Western Star newspaper in Corner Brook, organized by UFCW Canada when the infamous Conrad Black was still the owner.

Vol. X No. 8, March 1, 2010