Workers Go on Strike at Gerdau Ameristeel Cambridge
05/22/2009 - Nearly 200 United Steelworkers are now on strike after rejecting Gerdau Ameristeel’s final offer for a new collective agreement at the company’s Cambridge, Ont., plant.
Nearly 200 United Steelworkers are on strike after rejecting Gerdau Ameristeel’s final offer for a new collective agreement at the company’s Cambridge, Ont., facility.
The company and USW representatives have been in negotiations over the past several months. The union noted that it had offered to work with Gerdau to “bring in serious, temporary measures to deal with the current downturn”.
The union also noted that the company's final offer included permanent changes to the Collective Agreement that would create a two-tiered set of employees with two-tiered wages (for the same work), two-tiered vacations (for the same seniority), and two-tiered pensions (for the same years of service). The company was also said to require permanent concessions to job descriptions, wage settlements and job placement.
The United Steelworkers represents 250,000 men and women working in every sector of Canada's economy, including about 1000 at Gerdau's Canadian operations in Selkirk, Man., and Whitby and Courtice, Ont.
