We are the United Steelworkers, North America’s largest industrial union. We’re 1.2 million members and retirees strong in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean. We proudly represent men and women who work in nearly every industry there is.
October 3, 2018 - BC Hydro has notified us that they will be performing emergency work around our Burnaby Head Office on Thursday, October 4th.Unfortunately, this will result in the loss of power to the office. Our office will be closed for the day and the outage will affect our servers and phone lines across the country.
According to BC Hydro, we will be able to resume normal operations on Friday, October 5th.
This event is beyond our control and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
If you have questions of urgent nature and you need to speak to someone immediately, please call (250)860-5025.
3 octobre 2018 - BC Hydro nous a informés de la réalisation de travaux d’urgence autour de notre siège social à Burnaby le jeudi 4 octobre. Malheureusement, cela entraînera une coupure d’électricité dans nos locaux. Notre bureau sera fermé pour la journée et la panne affectera nos serveurs et nos lignes téléphoniques à travers le pays.
Selon BC Hydro, nous pourrons reprendre nos activités normales le vendredi 5 octobre.
Cet événement est indépendant de notre volonté et nous nous excusons pour tout désagrément que cela pourrait occasionner.
Si vous avez un problème urgent et que vous avez besoin de parler à quelqu’un immédiatement, veuillez appeler le (250) 860-5025.
Le 2 octobre 2018 - Nous remercions les membres de la Section locale 1944 des Métallos pour leur patience au cours de ces derniers mois, tandis que nous continuons d’assurer la tutelle de la Section locale. Nous avons consacré beaucoup de temps à enquêter sur des problèmes, à répondre à des requêtes, et à assumer quotidiennement les responsabilités nécessaires au maintien d’une Section locale forte et tournée vers l’avenir.
Notre priorité est de servir les membres. Au début de la mise sous tutelle, et nous avions fait la promesse de continuer à assurer un service de qualité à tous les membres, d’un océan à l’autre.
Au cours de l’été, nous nous sommes réunis plusieurs fois avec les Scrutateurs de vote de la Section locale, afin d’examiner les plaintes liées au vote. Nous avons terminé l’examen des cent sept (107) contestations qui avaient été déposées, à l’exception d’une (1), et nous avons commencé à rédiger notre Rapport. Cette dernière contestation en instance est assez complexe et a nécessité une enquête plus approfondie.
En septembre, Leo W. Gerard, Président International du Syndicat des Métallos, a constitué une Commission internationale, chargée d’enquêter sur deux ensembles d’accusations. Les audiences se dérouleront du 10 au 12 octobre 2018. Les « accusés » et les « accusateurs » ont été informés de ces audiences.
Nous sommes très fiers du travail accompli par nos membres à travers le pays. Grâce à votre dévouement, la Section locale et notre Syndicat sont plus forts.
Je suis ravi de voir que tant de membres sont mobilisés à travers le pays. Les Syndics ont continué leur excellent travail en veillant à ce que les finances de la Section locale soient pérennes. Au cours de l’été, une ronde de négociations difficile a opposé les membres de notre Unité 60 de Vancouver et Surrey, en Colombie-Britannique, avec Shaw. Cependant, nous nous sommes tous montrés unis et solidaires face à Shaw, et un nouvel accord a été conclu pour ces accréditations. Nos membres ont également participé aux Cours d’été du District 3 en juin, et à la Conférence du District 6 à Blue Mountain, en Ontario, en septembre, pendant que d’autres membres participaient aux niveaux 1 et 2 de la formation de Perfectionnement en leadership à Linden Hall, à Pittsburgh.
Cette semaine, nos membres sont à Victoria pour faire pression sur le gouvernement provincial avec des représentants du District 3. Dans le même temps, sept de nos membres sont à Linden Hall ; ils seront les premiers diplômés de la formation de Perfectionnement en leadership de la Section locale 1944. J’adresse toutes mes félicitations à ces membres pour leur réussite.
Le 14 octobre, une vingtaine de membres représenteront notre Section locale à la Conférence 2018 internationale et nationale des Métallos sur la condition féminine à Toronto. À la fin du mois, d’autres membres auront l’...
October 2, 2018 - We appreciate the patience from USW Local 1944 members as we worked through Administration over the past few months. We have spent a great deal of time investigating issues, responding to inquiries and performing day-to-day activities that keep this Local strong and moving ahead.
Our priority is the members, and we made a promise at the beginning of the Administration to keep delivering quality service levels for all members from coast to coast.
Over the summer, we held various meetings with the Local Election Tellers to review the election protests. We have completed our investigation into all but one (1) of the one hundred and seven (107) protests that were filed, and we have begun to write our Report. This last outstanding protest is quite complex and has required further investigation.
In September, USW International President Leo W. Gerard appointed an International Commission to conduct an investigation into two sets of charges. The hearings are now set to commence on October 10–12, 2018. The “accused” and the “accusers” have been notified of the meetings.
We are very proud of the work our members are doing across the country. Your dedication to this Local and our Union is what makes our union strong.
It is great to see so many members engaged across the country. Your Trustees continued their great work making sure the Local was on financial track. Over the summer, our Unit 60 members in Vancouver and Surrey, British Columbia, had a tough round of bargaining with Shaw. However, we all came together to show Shaw what solidarity looks like and a new agreement was reached for these certifications. Our members also participated in the District 3 Summer School in June, and in the District 6 Conference in Blue Mountain, Ontario, in September, while a number of other members participated in Level 1 and 2 of the Leadership Development Scholarship program at Linden Hall in Pittsburgh.
This week, our members are in Victoria to lobby the Provincial Government with representatives from District 3. We also have seven members at Linden Hall who will become Local 1944’s first graduates from the Leadership Development Scholarship program. Congratulations to those members on your accomplishment.
On October 14th, nearly twenty members will be representing our Local at the 2018 USW International and National Women’s Conference in Toronto. At the end of the month, more members will have the opportunity to participate at the District 6 Fall School in Orillia, Ontario, and at the District 3 Conference in Kamloops, British Columbia. In addition, this November, members will participate in the District 5 Conference in Charlevoix, Québec.
We heard from many members that you wanted more opportunities to participate in USW events and education trainings. We have been working hard with the Districts to offer Shop Steward...
More than 400 million blood draws take place in the United States each year, and while they provide vital diagnostic information, they also cause anxiety in patients and represent a significant safety risk to health care workers, writes John Palmer for Patient Safety and Quality Health Care.
Now, several hospitals have announced they will be using new technology called “the PIVO needle-free device” for inpatient blood draws.
University Hospitals in Cleveland in Cleveland, Griffin Hospital in Derby, Conn., and Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston have all announced they will be using or testing the device.
According to OSHA some 5.6 million workers in the United States are at risk of exposure to blood borne pathogens, and roughly 1 million workers report a needle stick or other sharps-related injury—a number OSHA estimates is wildly inaccurate because as many as half of these injuries may go unreported.
A new study finds that union-represented working mothers are at least 17 percent more likely to use paid maternity leave than comparable nonunion working mothers. But unions could do more to mitigate the wage penalties these workers experience afterwards.
Facilitating working mothers’ use of paid maternity leave is a key issue for policymakers and workers in many countries. And the United States is far behind in this global movement; the US is the only industrialized nation that lacks universal paid leave for new parents, although there are now a very small number of state-based programs and many employer-provided plans.
“Simply enacting or offering a paid parental leave plan does not automatically mean that workers will take a leave. So we need to better understand the factors that prevent workers from taking a leave, and ways to reduce these barriers,” says Tae-Youn Park, assistant professor of management at Vanderbilt University and lead author of the study.
THE 4 A’S
“One of the challenges with research into these issues, however, is that the decision to take leave is very complex,” Park says.
The study, which will appear in the journal Industrial and Labor Relations Review, breaks down the leave-taking decision into four key steps:
Availability: the policy needs to be available
Awareness: the worker needs to be aware of it
Affordability: the worker needs to believe she can afford to take a leave
Assurance: the worker needs to have implicit or explicit assurances that taking paid leave is unlikely to result in negative consequences
Park further suggests that labor unions can facilitate these steps.
“Labor unions are popularly associated with higher wages and restrictive work rules, but in reality unions can have many other effects in the workplace,” he says.
For example, unions not only make paid leave policies available through collective bargaining process, but also become an information facilitator by actively sharing information on existing leave policies via workshops, newsletters, or other channels, thereby enhancing workers’ awareness of the leave policies.
The researchers found that union-represented workers are at least 17 percent more likely to use paid maternity leave than comparable nonunion workers, and that unions facilitate this leave-taking through the availability, awareness, and affordability channels.
