According to
this article from 7 months ago, the pickets have been there about one year and two months now.
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Amid recession, a forgotten strike
Korex Strike
Workers at the old Lever Bros. factory at the foot of the Don Valley Parkway have been on strike against Korex Don Valley for six months.
Workers who set up pickets at Lever Bros.' old factory didn't think they'd still be walking the line six months later
Dec 06, 2008 04:30 AM
LAURIE MONSEBRAATEN
SOCIAL JUSTICE REPORTER
Toronto factory worker Billy McLachlan would love to be laid off.
Instead, the 46-year-old father of two and about 100 others who have spent most of their working lives making Sunlight detergent, Snuggle fabric softener and Dove soap are walking a picket line as the days get shorter – and colder.
None of them imagined they'd still be here on that warm spring morning six months ago when they set up pickets outside the old Lever Brothers soap factory at the foot of the Don Valley Parkway.
And nobody could have predicted that the Canadian dollar – trading at close to par with the American greenback in June – would plummet by more than 20 cents; the world would be gripped by a global credit crisis; and Ontario's manufacturing industry, including the Big Three automakers, would be on the verge of collapse.
"Yup, a lot has changed since then," McLachlan says wryly, stamping his feet and blowing on his frigid fingers.
The only thing that hasn't changed is the workers' determination to win a "respectable" contract from their American employer, Korex Don Valley. It's a curious standoff at a time when factories are closing, union jobs are disappearing and the tumbling stock market is putting everyone on edge.
The workers, members of CEP local 132-0, have been without a contract since June 2007. They haven't had a raise since 2002 and aren't asking for one. They just want to protect their wages and hard-won job rights, which they say the company is threatening to wipe out.
Failing that, McLachlan and his fellow pickets would like Korex chair Sandford Pensler to padlock the plant and issue layoff notices so they can collect employment insurance, qualify for job retraining – and get on with their lives. In the meantime, the workers walk. And wait. And wonder, as the economy crumbles around them, if anybody cares.
Toronto's Lever Brothers soap factory, which became a subsidiary of the Anglo-Dutch multinational Unilever in 1930, has been a local landmark since the 1890s. But the future of the plant, which uses sophisticated equipment and volatile chemicals to produce cleaning products, began to unravel in 2002 when Unilever decided to sell.
"It was no longer financially viable for the company," says Korex's Pensler, of New Jersey-based Pensler Capital Corp., which bought the factory in August that year.
Pensler believed he could make a go of the plant by adding it to his growing Korex division of contract manufacturers which produce a wide range of goods for companies such as Unilever. He promised to save jobs if workers agreed to a five-year wage freeze, lower pay for new hires, cuts to short-term and long-term disability benefits and the loss of their defined-benefit pensions.
The union didn't like it, but the deal was sweetened by a $9 million severance package it negotiated with Unilever for its 280 members.
Everyone seemed happy enough.
But when the contract expired in June 2007, the company wanted more concessions.
"There are a raft of work rules that make the plant very inefficient to run," Pensler says. "Some may see that as seniority rights, but it's much more than that."
Wages at the plant averaged about $25 an hour, about $4 to $5 an hour more than Korex's unionized competitors in the so-called "secondary" manufacturing market.
When Pensler bought the plant, the Canadian dollar was worth about 63 cents U.S., making it still relatively competitive, even in the American market, he says.
But the plant, which is operating with managers and replacement workers on a reduced capacity, is no longer viable – even with an 80-cent Canadian dollar – without significant cost cutting, says Pensler, who last met with the union Nov. 20. He won't speculate on what he will do if the union doesn't budge.
"Our plans at this point are to maintain the plant and return to profitability. I really don't want to speculate on our other options."
Union local president Ralph Downing, 55, a 33-year veteran of the plant earning $28.72 an hour, admits wages were decent.
But he scoffs at Pensler's "attack" on working conditions. "It's one thing to stand still while everybody catches up, but it's another thing to go backwards," he says in the strikers' propane-heated Quonset.
The grandfather of three is battling hepatitis C, but is on the picket line four days a week. Despite his illness, Downing is quick to charge a strikebreaker's car and hurl a colourful insult. He's proud that just three of the local's 110 members have crossed the picket line.
Co-worker Paul Hunter, 58, with 31 years at the plant, donated part of his liver to Downing in Feb. 2006 to save his buddy's life. "My liver is older than his and I was just filling it with wine," Hunter says. "I figured he could put it to better use."
Hunter, a millwright at the plant earning top pay of about $35 an hour, just got a job with GO Transit. But he still shows up for picket duty between work shifts. "We're like family here. We've watched each other's children grow up."
McLachlan, a shipper-receiver earning $26.53 an hour, is one of the junior members of the union with 18 years at the plant. So even if the company settles, he expects to be laid off due to a shortage of work.
But on the picket line he's in limbo – unable to collect EI or qualify for career retraining courses.
"I know I have to upgrade my skills. I'm looking forward to it. I'm young enough," says the Whitby resident, who has a daughter in university and another one in Grade 8.
At least his wife, a graphic artist, is still working.
Peter Rechkemmer isn't so lucky.
Last summer he got shingles from the stress and now pays $400 a month for prescription drugs to keep it under control. In October, his wife Ellen, who works at an auto parts factory, got a layoff notice.
"I don't know how we're going to do it," says the 56-year-old worker with 24 years at the plant, most recently as a liquid machine operator earning $27.09 an hour. He has tried to find another job. "I have all the qualifications, but I can't get an interview. It's my age. Nobody wants anybody in their 50s.
"We're not going anywhere," he says of the pickets. "I'm scheduled to work New Year's Eve."