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YOU GET WHAT YOU FIGHT FOR

Bargaining on safety

Canada still has millions of traditional, traditionally hazardous jobs - mining and manufacturing, forestry and fishing. Cathy Walker, health and safety director of autoworkers' union CAW, describes the Canadian unions' lifesaving fight for better rights and better workplaces.

The Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW) has 260,000 members - and not all in motor manufacture. The union also has members in autoparts, airlines, rail transport, retail, hospitality, marine, fishing and health care sectors. Many of the jobs are already hazardous, but as a result of globalisation and "competitive pressures," employers are pushing us to work faster and harder, causing more insecurity, more stress and more strains.

Through union struggles workers in Canada have won a legal "right to refuse," "right to participate" and "right to know." Under the law, workers using these rights are completely protected from discipline; they can't be fired, there can be no reprisals.

Bargaining on safety Hazards 86 Apr-June 2004 Order the photospread

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