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Newsstand: June 14, 2011
Illustration by Sasha Plotnikova/Torontoist.
Hey, ho, we won’t go—to work today, if we worked at Air Canada or Canada Post. Torontoist suggests: Make it a clean sweep and stay home from any job with Canada in the name! (Just an idea, and a good one, we daresay!) Also in the news today: Councillors work to ban shark fin soup, and Scarborough residents stay home from a G20 hearing.
Air Canada customer service workers are on the picket lines outside Pearson’s Terminal 1, saying their employer is trying to gut their pensions and won’t budge. About 3,200 counter agents and 600 call centre staffers across the country went on strike at midnight in their effort to say no to a two-tier pension system, where new employees and recent retirees would get a less attractive payout. (Strikers were in particularly festive spirits in Saint John, New Brunswick, where they videotaped themselves singing Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” as they got ready to leave.) Meanwhile, the airline insists its 300 managers and 1,400 non-union staff will be able to handle the job of getting all flights out on time—but say it might help if fliers avoid the counter as much as possible, check in and print out boarding passes at home, and avoid checking any luggage. And—surprise, surprise—things will be way easier for people flying out of the Island airport, where Air Canada’s counter is manned by non-union workers.
Further on the strike beat, postal workers in Toronto are also off the job today. Toronto and Montreal are the latest cities hit by rotating strikes that have been ongoing since June 3. Workers say their employer is trying to goad them into a full strike by temporarily stopping mail delivery on Tuesdays and Thursdays, what the strikers are calling a “partial lockout.” Here at Torontoist, we resort to wishful thinking: “If only there were a fast, paperless, efficient way to deliver messages without using the mail!” File that one with the beverage capsules and rocket cars!
Councillors Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 27—Toronto Centre-Rosedale) and Glenn De Baeremaeker (Ward 38—Scarborough Centre) are on a mission to save our friends the sharks, by banning the possession, sale, and consumption of shark fins. Today they’ll present such a motion to council, at which time it will likely be referred to committee, and maybe come back for voting by fall. In the meantime, they’re trying to collect 10,000 signatures on a petition supporting their cause (which notably wasn’t yet online when the councillors held a press conference about it yesterday). Bringing this issue to the forefront is a small victory for those keen on saving the oceans and eating sustainable food. And for those who can’t live without the nourishing power of shark fin—eat up while you still can?
And, another day, another G20 hearing, right? Only 30 people showed up to last night’s civilian review panel at the Scarborough Civic Centre. It was a marked contrast to the “myriad” who showed up at the downtown hearing on June 1, but that only stands to reason—it was the downtowners, after all, who bore the brunt of the days-long police state that left more than 1,000 people in jail without ever being charged. Those who did attend the Scarborough meeting complained police should have consulted the public on the purchase of weapons and equipment (sound cannons, anyone?), and compared the event’s policing to communist Czechoslovakia.